Thanks to my sister for encouraging me with these poems ever since we were little. This has been a great creative outlet and confidence booster, at a time when I really needed it (I did just become a Democrat, after all). So thanks for reading. Oh yes, and thanks to my sweet boy (Kaedon) for being my idea tester, cheerleader, and editor.
River
I used to watch the world
From a square window
In a square house
On a square plot of land the same size as everyone else’s.
At night I would flip the switch on my artificial light
And stare at the finely cut plastic stars
Glowing from my droopy cobweb ceiling.
Then one day, my perfectly calibrated life
Collapsed,
Destroyed
In the moment I most expected to simply
Follow my defined path into a square eternity.
Bowed
Beneath the weight of disillusionment, I stood
In the depths of the night that enveloped me.
Then, in one moment of stifling confusion and profound sadness,
I walked away,
Left the way I was, determined never to live my life
In between ever again.
In search of truth, I left with nothing
And set out into the unknown.
Led to the call of the
Wild woodlands,
Stretching into the rise and swell of a sea of emerald hills;
The majesty of
Towering snow-dusted mountain peaks
Rising into a heaven of brilliant
Cotton-candy clouds,
Where the river winds through
Towering granite pine canyons,
The cool green water
Streaked with summer twilight;
Where the eagle shrieks across the mist-shrouded hills,
A silhouette against a paper-mache moon;
Where blinding whiteness tears a crooked path
Across a dusky amethyst sky,
And the song of the lonely coyote
Rings through the darkness.
The sea of glittering diamonds that lit the still, cool
Night, the sweet smell of the night’s silence,
Filled my soul with
Light
And I remembered the plastic constellation
Lyra in my closed
Ignorant
Bedroom in my old life.
The contrast between the two worlds collided in
Stark reality in my mind,
And filled my heart with thankfulness
For a soul-less life
Collapsed on that night so long ago,
Taking away
Nothing,
Giving
Everything.
I remember how the old guide said
That fear would change
To reverence,
then love;
That the river haunts ones dreams,
And that I would
Never
Be
The same.
[wrote this when I was 20, though I found two versions. Ouch! As if I don't already have a hard enough time editing my own stuff! these always seem so imperfect to me...though it is really cathartic to write them...the "collapse" I was referring to was the break-up I referred to in my last post. I had a night, when I was all alone, that I reached a breaking point and cried and cried, alone in the dark in a campus parking lot. Don't worry-- it didn't take long to realize I was really happy I hadn't married the guy, though he was a nice guy. It just made me take another look at my life and gave me a willingness to try something new.]
[my life was great and very happy before the river-- I had a wonderful growing up-- perfect for me-- and my ceiling definitely wasn't cobwebby and droopy (sorry, Mom!)-- this was more of a metaphor...going on the river just widened my ideas of what I could do in life, that it wasn't just limited to the cookie-cutter life I had always sort of subconsciously envisioned for myself. If anything, it taught me, if you want something, go for it!
It is interesting that I met my husband the summer after this, when I was so happy and full of life, which is what he said attracted him to me. We were friends, and I could open up to him more than almost anyone else. He was one of the few people I actually showed this poem to, and after he read it, he gave me "the look." Little did I know he was deciding to wait for me on my mission. :) And marrying him has definitely been a non-cookie cutter adventure! We have had some great times, and he definitely doesn't just do something because its a cultural norm (which can be totally maddening at times, too!). :) ]
Thanks for taking this little trip with me down memory lane. :) (Poems on my other blog here and here).
