2013 Poetry Corner #6 - "To Be"

To dream is to stretch your soul
... to reach out of your reality to a new place
... to hope for future peace

To plan is to stretch your mind
... to focus on the changes that must be
... to hold onto a goal with purpose

To try is to acknowledge possibility
... of both failure and success
... to move onward anyway

To grow is to reach forth
... to know that to gain may cause pain
... that through adversity, we gain strength

To love is to believe
... to know that the Father loves us
... to have faith in ourselves
... to be

2011 Poetry Corner # 2 : Frogs

Every poem I have ever posted on here I have written myself. This is my first departure from that tradition.

The other day I was out and about doing errands and I stopped at a recycle center. While I was doing my recycling I saw one of those school notebooks in the recycling pile and I pulled it out. The notebook was empty and ready to use with the exception of six pages. All six pages had the same poem written on them. I am not sure I like the poem, but it was very interesting and I didn't think it deserved the ignoble death that it was about to suffer so I brought it home and I copied it here – I felt it was at least worthy of discussion. I will take it down at the author's request and have left the poem true to the author's format! :)

Frogs – written by Norman MacCaig

Frogs sit more solid
than anything sits. In mid leap they are
parachutes falling
in a free fall. They die on roads
with arms across their chests and
heads high

I love frogs that sit
like Buddha, that fall without
parachutes, that die
like Italian tenors

Above all I like them because
pursued in water, they never
panic so much that they fail to make
stylish triangles with their ballet dancers
legs

What are your thoughts?

Ending my Day...

I have been studying C.S. Lewis in my free time lately... I will admit that there hasn't been much free time :) I have loved to study him for decades and loved to read him when I was younger. But recently, I have been using him to study myself, my situation and my faith. Over the last few weeks I have found that many of the the large stack of books are starting to gather dust and only one rises quickly to my hand and I find myself thumbing through it and staring at the same paragraph. I think it is one of the most thought provoking set of sentences I have ever read.

“And grief still feels like fear. Perhaps, more strictly, like suspense. Or like waiting; just hanging about waiting for something to happen. It gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn't seem worth starting anything. I can't settle down. I yawn, I fidget, I smoke too much. Up till this I always had too much time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness...”

I really feel this way. I am starting to realize that some of what I saw as fear was actually grief and most of what I saw as anger was actually despair and sorrow. Figuring out how to describe what I feel has been quite difficult and when I read this statement from Lewis, I actually took a quick breath and a voice in my head said 'That's it- That's really it.' I have found the words to describe how I feel which also helps me to understand and deal with it.

I have lost my joy, my heart, and potentially all that I possess. But I still have my life and my feelings and I will continue to move forward in faith and thru a divorce process that I never expected, never wanted and have to live with the choices that have been picked for me. I feel the constant movement of time and I am horribly busy with five classes and starting a new job and yet I feel that I have nothing but emptiness and time mixed together. And I should not feel this, but I feel alone and I feel the urge to withdraw from all around me. Funny enough, I feel embarrassed over my failure because I do not consider a marriage to fail through the faults of only one person and I have not been perfect. So in all my grief and tiredness and sorrow, I am sitting here wondering if I feel like withdrawing because I feel so much pain... or if I feel like withdrawing because I am embarrassed. I can be quite silly sometimes. :)

Well, here goes nothing...!