For Day 10 of the blog-every-weekday commitment I’m stepping out of my comfort zone.
Way, way out of my comfort zone.
I’m posting a poem—an actual poem—raw and unpolished.
Even though LIzzie, my lizard brain, and Binnie, my bitchy inner critic, are both absolutely positive that anyone who comes across this thing will cringe at my pitiful attempt. Or worse yet—roll their eyes and click on to the next (much better) reading morsel.
“Don’t do it!” Lizzie yells. “You’ll be judged, laughed at, maybe even tarred and feathered!”
“I can’t believe you’d actually publish that piece of shit,” sneers Binnie. “Don’t you think you should spend at least 55 hours reviewing it and polishing it, but even then it probably wouldn’t be fit to share with the world.”
See, I don’t think I’ve written a poem since I was, maybe 20. Back then I penned pages of angst-ridden free verse, often crumpling up the page in despair. I was a slave to the rants of Lizzie and Binnie (although they didn’t have names back then, they were simply the voices of Reason.)
I remember sweating and trembling as I stood up in poetry class to read my work, and wanting to sink down under the foundation of the building when someone spoke up with a critique.
In fact, since everyone in the class including the teacher did not gasp in awe at the pure perfection of my writing, it was clear that I had no talent whatsoever.
I abandoned poetry, and for years I abandoned almost all writing. It was simply too painful to be seen, to be judged. Writing was just too important to me. Safer to keep my words buried deep inside.
(Can you tell I’m rambling to avoid actually posting this poem?)
Anyway – this past weekend I touched that inner flame of my passion for poetry once again—at a Wild Writing workshop here in San Miguel de Allende. And this time I’m wiser. I’m onto Lizzie and Binnie. I’ve got tools to work with the sneers, the jeers that come from inside. I’ve even got tools to handle the ones that come from out there.
I get it now.
The point is to WRITE. The point is to FEEL. The point is to share what is meaningful and poignant to me, and to do it for ME.
That’s why I’m writing these blogs. And that’s why I’m taking this giant step out of the safe comfortable zone, and sharing this spontaneously written little piece with you. Enjoy.
First Light
Church chimes, birdsong
I rise, inhale the absolute
joy, exquisite awareness
of a day unfolding as yet unmarred
with stories.
Though even this act of writing
this attempt to pluck down one
of those rose-tinted clouds,
to capture expansion on
the flatness of page
It takes me out, the savor
dims and yet, still
the swallows fan
across the sky, a perfect V
oblivious, yet connected
As I, in my denser form
remain connected to all
a thread of gossamer light, joining me
to sky, the rose, the open hand
of God presenting us with Today
