days of nuwanda

Gems

I'm in a poetic mood and rifling thru old notebooks...here is one of mine, randomly selected.

 

Veins streaming through this place (cold

As ice) where once a garden grew

And embraced the sunshine and told

Stories of old and young to the moon

As he sung.

 

The young blood sweeps old truth

Under the rug (in their naïve

Sense of justice) and lays hold of today's

Word while it is today, for tomorrow

Will have a new word (and both are

Amazingly accepted, validated in the

Blooming insanity).

 

You there, with your nose turned up,

Haven't they told you the band has gone,

The show is over, the spotlights dimmed?

Seasonal joy never lasts, my friend.

Go looking for it behind the curtain and

You'll understand.

What once was beautiful is only beautiful in

The land of memories--if you can get there.

 

Take care, young ones. Do not miss the

Possibility of old joys found by digging up

The aged treasure.

Wisdom is yours for the taking if you can

Locate it among the many gemstones

Disguised as hard lessons.

"Fix This"

Lord, I hurt. People in my life hurt.
Life itself hurts. Because sin hurts.
And you want it to hurt.
Not because you like to see your children in pain,
But, just as numbness is a sign of deadened nerves,
So pain is a sign of life. Physically and spiritually.
Sin hurts as a sign of my new life in you.
(I hurt when I am apart from you.)
And there is only one fix--
Coming back to you.
(Confession. Repentance. Forgiveness.)
I'm back, but the struggle continues.
So into your hands, Lord, I place
Those situations I cannot change,
Those hurts I cannot heal,
Those words I cannot take back,
Those deeds I cannot undo,
The guilt I cannot seem to leave behind...
On my own.
Lord, please fix this!

"Never the Same" circa 1999

 “Never the Same”

 

Things are never the same after a part of you dies.

You always know that piece is gone

And you always know it will never come back.

It’s not really that you miss it

And you don’t really want it back,

Being on the other side of the thing.

Because the way you have changed

And the things you learned thru’ the losing

Could never be known by any other means.

And so you accept it, without smiles or frowns.

You get used to the missing piece, the void.

Yet the memory of it won’t ever go away.

The hole will never heal itself.

It’s almost as if it refuses to be healed.

And you refuse to allow it to heal.

You never know why you want so much

To hold on to the wound.

You just do. Maybe you enjoy pain.

And really it does hurt; there is pain.

And you are conscious of it.

But you never try to do anything about it.

And all the time you ask yourself

Why you don’t get rid of the pain.

When there must be a way.

But you never want to try.

And you always know that you are the one

Who will not let go of what’s been taken from you.

You are responsible for anything

That you feel is lacking

Because you choose to remember.

 

Hummingbird

by Raymond Carver

Suppose I say summer,
write the word "hummingbird,"
put it in an envelope,
take it down the hill
to the box. When you open
my letter you will recall
those days and how much,
just how much, I love you.

Before You Came

Before You Came
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

(English Translation by Naomi Lazard)

Before you came things were just what they were:
the road precisely a road, the horizon fixed,
the limit of what could be seen,
a glass of wine was no more than a glass of wine.

With you the world took on the spectrum
radiating from my heart: your eyes gold
as they open to me, slate the color
that falls each time I lost all hope.

With your advent roses burst into flame:
you were the artist of dried-up leaves, sorceress
who flicked her wrist to change dust into soot.
You lacquered the night black.

As for the sky, the road, the cup of wine:
one was my tear-drenched shirt,
the other an aching nerve,
the third a mirror that never reflected the same thing.

Now you are here again—stay with me.
This time things will fall into place;
the road can be the road,
the sky nothing but sky;
the glass of wine, as it should be, the glass of wine

"Even the Rain Understands"

I haven't posted many poems here, but came across an old one of mine today that struck me. I have said this before....rereading my own poetry from years ago is like becoming reacquainted w/ an old friend....I recognize myself, hear myself in the words, but am struck w/ who I've become as now the reader.

**********************

Even the rain understands

Rain falling fast, and drops falling from my

dark brow.

Overcast is an understatement.

Miserable is more like it.

And I stand on Main Street,
in view of all the world to judge.

Wet and lost.

When you said the end was here, I didn’t listen.

When you kissed me goodbye, I didn’t hold on

as though it was the last joy I would ever know.

When you didn’t come back, it didn’t cross my mind

that you never would again.

Until now.

Until the cold, wet, hateful rain cast its spell

on my sunshiny day.

Until I stepped out onto Main Street.
And then the rain told me.

It whispered to me (midst laughs of

mockery)

that I was the fool,

that I should have known what it meant

when you never returned.

That I should abandon all hope.

And now I stand here, lost, utterly.

Oh soul of mine, why have you lingered here in

this made-up space of hope?

Oh heart within me, why have you ignored

what even the rain understands?

I pick up my feet and travel the distance

to the end of my pride.

My umbrella protects me now, as I leave

Main Street and revisit the agony
awaiting me at home.

The desire to write

Came across these words I penned nearly 4 years ago. (See below) Funny how these feelings still resonate with me...that longing to write, that passion inside, that desire to write, yet neither the time nor the drive to make it my "career". I recently read one author who said that if you cannot make time to write, you are not a true writer. I guess I fit into that category. Maybe when toddlerhood has passed, I can refocus my energies on what I once loved. Not that motherhood is something I'm merely enduring. These conflicts do tear me apart at times. I have found no resolution, just a longing that comes and goes, and a wishful thinking that someday things will be as they once were. Am I naive?

11-3-00
Thoughts….

Sometimes at night I think about the way
my life has never really been what I thought
it should be. And about the way that I’m
content with things currently, how I
would not change my course if I could.
A struggling writer, this life’s not so bad.
Waking each morning with more new thoughts,
stories, and ideas surrounding me—never
replacing the old ones, just in addition to.
And searching for the time to put away
the laundry and the dishes and focus on
getting down the poem I’ve been penning in my
head all day. Wondering when the day will come
that writing is a priority for me (right before
I explode from overload).
Driving to work as the sun rises and asking myself
if having money is worth not fulfilling my dream
of journaling my memoirs and composing the poems
already written and dying to be exposed.
There is just not enough time to be a citizen of
this world and a dedicated writer.

Lost...and yet found

Last year I lost several books of poetry when a flood invaded our neighborhood and turned my basement/storage space into an indoor pool. And these books of poetry...they weren't the kind you can reorder on ebay or bn.com or anywhere else. They were my own personal writings from over 15 years of journaling. At that time, I had just begun scanning those notebooks and getting them into electonic formats....but most were lost. Last July I held water-logged journals with ink running and fading, and tears filled my eyes. Years worth of emotions and thoughts, completely ruined.
I pretty much stopped writing after that. Kinda stopped me in my tracks, ended my desire to write for a bit. But now I'm getting that inner drive back. Recently I stumbled across a folder (in the back of my desk cabinet....thank you, Jonathan, for giving me a reason to clean my desk) with some formerly-thought-lost poetry and prose. It was like a breath of fresh air, reading my own material from 5 years ago, after believing it was all gone. (Like being reaquainted with an old friend.)
I also found some connections and names of poets that I used to join in an online forum. The forum is not functioning today, but a yahoo search found one of the poets, and I've been reintroduced with his work.
It's been a refreshing week on that front. And blogging has been fun too. I could get used to this...