Friday, July 21, 2006

for all my fellow lovers of the written word...

This is actually an old poem (also the source of the line used in my blog description). But as I have been talking to so many who share a love for word-smithing, I wanted to post it. This is for all you who love the way that a word is born...
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It is a way that a word is born,
forged into new life
when perfectly placed,
artfully laid
in the aesthetics of language.
It is the crafting of expression,
the breathing of sound into silence.
It is the sculpting of the emotions of the speechless,
granting freedom to mark themselves messily on the page,
pour themselves out as a bottle of ink,
like the proverbial bleeding heart.

It is because the spoken word is so final,
yet fleeting:
the paradox of a thing that is
both irrevocable
and easily forgotten.
But my pen,
my pen can change its mind,
scratch out the expression found wanting,
redeem the shortcomings of the first attempt.
And when the portrait is done,
and the ink is drying in the final etchings
of the passionately scrawled portrayal of self,
it is then that the pen preserves
the irony of the moment,
the instantaneous laugh,
the knot in my stomach,
or the way he looked at me.

It is because words are a companion,
wrapping around the soul,
a warm body in the cold room of silence,
an ally in emotional solitude.
A well-crafted poem will
join me for coffee,
listen long into the night,
and call me out to dance an intimate slow dance.

It is to find myself when I am lost,
to give shape to my sorrow,
lineation to my laughter.
It is because I must.
And because when I do,
you can no longer look straight through me.
So that both of us can see;
that is why
I write.

2 comments:

Carrie said...

“I’m discovering that a spiritual journey is a lot like a poem. You don’t merely recite a poem or analyze it intellectually. You dance it, sing it cry it, feel it on your skin and in your bones. You move with it and feel its caress. It falls on you like a teardrop or wraps around you like a smile. It lives in the heart and the body as well as the spirit and the head.” –Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits.

Anonymous said...

Hey ,
Sounds great that you know all about your stuff! Its intriguing when you speak to someone who knows what they speak about, as oppose to reciting it from someone else they learned from. I can see you are very experienced and with your credentials it is quite obvious that you will make it far in life, or have already made it far in life :)