days of nuwanda

The everything that's really nothing

I came across this poem again a while ago, and as most people do when they read it, I paused and then sat and stared at my monitor for a while afterwards, thinking and reflecting. It's such a universal thought, the wearing of masks to keep ourselves protected,and I enjoyed thinking about it all again. (Yes, I enjoyed thinking. I never claimed to be normal.) I remember writing a poem in college about the wonder of friends who were not fooled by the smile on my face. They were rare, still are rare, and I treasure them. 

Here is my fave part of the poem. Good stuff.

 

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,

with a facade of assurance without

and a trembling child within.

So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,

and my life becomes a front.

I tell you everything that's really nothing,

and nothing of what's everything,

of what's crying within me.

So when I'm going through my routine

do not be fooled by what I'm saying.

Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,

what I'd like to be able to say,

what for survival I need to say,

but what I can't say.

 

A little E.E.Cummings for your day

(P.S. I love how rebellious artists choose not to follow the rules [like capitalization and punctuation] and all the world forgives them. :)

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

"Song"

I'm not in a morbid mood, honest. I just happen to like this poem.

 

"Song" by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

HEN I am dead, my dearest,

Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no roses at my head,

Nor shady cypress tree:

Be the green grass above me

With showers and dewdrops wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget

 

I shall not see the shadows,

I shall not feel the rain;

I shall not hear the nightingale

Sing on, as if in pain;

And dreaming through the twilight

That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

And haply may forget.

Tread softly

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
by William Butler Yeats

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

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.