Meaning through poetry (favorites, published)

[manymoretodays]

Link to poems written by members:  member's original poetry

 

 

I just had to share this one by Mary Oliver on grief:  From her book entitled:Thirst.

 

Heavy

 

That time

I thought I could not

go any closer to grief

without dying

 

I went closer,

and I did not die.

Sure God

had His hand in this,

 

as well as friends.

Still, I was bent,

and my laughter,

as the poet said,

 

was nowhere to be found.

Then said my friend Daniel

(brave even among lions),

"It's not the weight you carry

 

but how you carry it-----

books, bricks, grief-----

it's all in the way

you embrace it, balance it, carry it

 

when you cannot, and would not,

put it down."

So I went practicing.

Have you noticed?

 

Have you heard

the laughter

that comes, now and again,

out of my startled mouth?

 

How I linger

to admire, admire, admire

the things of this world

that are kind, and maybe

 

also troubled------

roses in the wind,

the sea geese on the steep waves,

a love

to which there is no reply?

Edited August 9, 2018 by manymoretodays
corrected link

[NobodySpecial]

Hey everybody,

 

I've personally found poetry and metaphor to be an incredibly helpful ally in understanding and digesting the struggles of tapering. It has helped me transform things that seemed like they would haunt my life forever into something that I feel incredibly blessed to have experienced and transformed.

 

I'll start by sharing a few poems, and I would love it if you would share poems or metaphor that has helped you through these challenging times

 

Quote

Those who will not slip beneath

the still surface on the well of grief,

turning down through its black water

to the place we cannot breathe,

we will never know the source from which we drink,

the secret water, cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering,

the small round coins, 

thrown by those who wished for

something else.

- David Whyte, The Well of Grief

 

 

Quote

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

— Jellaludin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Bark

 

 

 

 

[manymoretodays]

Oh me too NobodySpecial, as far as finding the use of poetry and metaphor incredibly healing.  And the transformation you mention as well.........I so agree.

 

And love, love, love Rumi, most especially "The Guest House".  There are some great ones in the Coleman Bark translation.  I may take a look today at my copy.

 

Do you write some poems or free form at all?  I find that very helpful as well.  And........drumroll...........we have a topic with some poetry written by members through the years. 

Also.......good, good.......on you starting this topic as I believe I posted some poetry by a published author in that thread.  I will try to move that poem here.  If I don't perfect the...... moving it quickly.......you may enjoy just reading the poem I posted there as well, it's on grief.

 

Best, Love, peace, healing/inrecovery, and growth,

manymoretodays

 

[NobodySpecial]

Hey @manymoretodays,

 

Send me a link, maybe I'll become a quick fan of your work and share it here

[manymoretodays]

Oh hey, I often just do it on paper.......the writing and more free from.  There are some other poems written by members that may speak to you though.  The other poetry section(stuff written by members, other than the one I mentioned) that we have going is here:

 

http://survivingantidepressants.org/topic/8697-poems/

 

 

Go ahead and give it a whirl........I think you'd enjoy doing some of your own.

 

Love, peace, healing/inrecovery, and growth,

mmt

[MadMike]

The danger has passed, The wrong's have been righted;

The Veteran’s are ignored, The soldier slighted.

 

We live in dismay, with our future's uncertain,

But to the VA, we feel like a burden.

 

Physically unable, mentally unstable,

We search for help, the doctor's not able.

 

We seek the help we might expect,

Just to be treated without respect.

 

We do our best to keep our anger in check, to control our rage.

If they knew what we're capable of, maybe their attitudes would change.

 

To these people, we may not be societies pillars,

what they need to keep in mind, I am a trained killer.

A warrior takes his own life, the only way to deal with the pain,

Doctors go to work the next day, without shame, without blame.

 

An American hero died, another veteran suicide, just a statistic,

Sometimes I wish, he'd have first went ballistic.

 

Taking out those that treated him bad, that got him started on these pills,

He knew he could take no more, this was it, the end gives him chills,

 

So he hangs from a rope, or a bullet through his brain,

He should have first made those people feel HIS life of pain.

 

The veteran is gone, the doctors live on, but I hope they learn to see,

Because the next crazy one they piss off just might be ME.

 

Trained to kill at an early age, we are without feeling, without remorse,

Silent, deadly, seek them out, give them no recourse.

 

But nothing would change, VA puts another one in their place,

Another moron handing out pills, as a doctor, a total disgrace.

 

It leaves those of us that are still here, living, fighting with all our will,

To keep seeking an answer, it only comes in the form of another pill…

 

We try the pills, because a prescription pad is the VA doctors only skill,

But when we try to sleep, we don't sleep, we just remember………...… still.

 

                                                                         Author unknown  (2018)

Edited February 24, 2018 by manymoretodays
boxed empasis disturbing

[NobodySpecial]

Thanks for the link @manymoretodays,

 

I'll give it a shot

 

I do write essays / short letters, I guess that's similar to poetry? I write each day, and have a backlog of probably 2 - 300 + now!

[manymoretodays]

   From arbor.  This was very nice.  And let's add to these poetry threads, for inspiration, understanding, expression, and comfort!  Thanks arbor!

On 10/12/2020 at 11:40 AM, arbor said:

After hearing that Louise Gluck had won the Nobel Prize for Literature, I found this poem about recovery on the BBC

 

Snowdrops

Do you know what I was, how I lived?  You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.

I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring--

afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy

in the raw wind of the new world.

 

End

 

I look forward to us all reclaiming our health again....

 

[Onmyway]

OMG, can't believe I found this place - was just about to create a thread on poetry. This one spoke to me over the summer - in fact it sustained me for months. It reminds me of all the time we are spending in limbo while healing (or that's how I feel often). 

 

Edited October 3, 2021 by Onmyway

[Dragonportal]

On 10/6/2015 at 12:03 PM, manymoretodays said:

Heavy

 

That time

I thought I could not

go any closer to grief

without dying

 

I went closer,

and I did not die.

Sure God

had His hand in this,

 

as well as friends.

Still, I was bent,

and my laughter,

as the poet said,

 

was nowhere to be found.

Then said my friend Daniel

(brave even among lions),

"It's not the weight you carry

 

but how you carry it-----

books, bricks, grief-----

it's all in the way

you embrace it, balance it, carry it

 

when you cannot, and would not,

put it down."

So I went practicing.

Have you noticed?

 

Have you heard

the laughter

that comes, now and again,

out of my startled mouth?

 

How I linger

to admire, admire, admire

the things of this world

that are kind, and maybe

 

also troubled------

roses in the wind,

the sea geese on the steep waves,

a love

to which there is no reply?

Beautiful. Love Mary Oliver. Her words are so grounding, healing.

[blackcat]

I'm not very well-versed (ha) in poetry, but I really love this one by Wendy Cope, all about appreciating the small things:

 

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It's new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.

 

Wendy Cope, The Orange

 

[Ariel]

So happy and thankful to find this thread <3

 

I would like to share a poem by Gregory Orr. It speaks to me of loss, acceptance, and healing. I find myself returning to it again and again. 

 

Untitled (This is what was bequeathed us)

 

This is what was bequeathed us:

This earth the beloved left

And, leaving,

Left to us.

 

No other world

But this one:

Willows and the river

And the factory

With its black smokestacks.

 

No other shore, only this bank

On which the living gather.

 

No meaning but what we find here.

No purpose but what we make.

 

That, and the beloved’s clear instructions:

Turn me into song; sing me awake. 

 

 

- Gregory Orr

[Ariel]

Here is another favorite. Perhaps it could be encouraging as a kind of recovery rallying cry. 

 

*

 

won’t you celebrate with me 

BY LUCILLE CLIFTON

 

won't you celebrate with me

what i have shaped into

a kind of life? i had no model.

born in babylon

both nonwhite and woman

what did i see to be except myself?

i made it up

here on this bridge between

starshine and clay,

my one hand holding tight

my other hand; come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

 

*

 

Copied from  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50974/wont-you-celebrate-with-me  where one can also listen to an audio recording of poet Lucille Clifton's reading. 

[eileen1111]

MATINS by Louise Gluck 

 

You want to know how I spend my time?
I walk the front lawn, pretending
to be weeding. You ought to know
I'm never weeding, on my knees, pulling
clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact
I'm looking for courage, for some evidence
my life will change, though
it takes forever, checking
each clump for the symbolic
leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already
the leaves turning, always the sick trees
going first, the dying turning
brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform
their curfew of music. You want to see my hands?
As empty now as at the first note.
Or was the point always
to continue without a sign?

 

 

These lines really speak to me: 

'I'm looking for courage, for some evidence

my life will change...

or was the point always

to continue without a sign?'

[Ariel]

@eileen1111

Thank you! Love it. Excellent choice xx

[eileen1111]

@Ariel I was also thinking of posting this poem by Anne Sexton for the line 'Your courage was a small coal / that you kept swallowing' ❤️ 

[Ariel]

@eileen1111

Ah... Beautiful. 

 

" ...

if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed. 

... "

 

Post it!

[Ariel]

@eileen1111

Btw, speaking of Anne Sexton... I grew up adoring the confessional poets and mourning/glamorizing their deaths. Ever since I've had my eyes opened (and my heart ripped out and my brain trampled) to the reality of psychopharmacological harm, I can't help but wonder how many artists' suicides can be traced to iatrogenic damage. Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, just to name a few prominent examples, had both undergone commitment to mental hospitals and psychiatric drug treatment. When I was younger I viewed their stories as part of this whole quasi-romantic narrative of brilliance burning too bright for this world, yada yada yada supernova goes boom. Surviving adolescence largely disabused me of such tedious idea(liza)tion, though our culture loves to perpetuate objectification of the tortured genius. (We are obsessed with some version of the alleged averred inevitable suffering and spectacular unraveling of an extraordinarily creative mind. The neurodivergent/neuroatypical are too often other-ed/dehumanized/outcast/undermined -- implicitly or overtly -- be it via exploitation/commodification or bogus psychiatric diagnosis or social alienation/marginalization or all of the above. Society just doesn't really know what to do with such outliers -- especially if they are not for sale -- while simultaneously being convinced that if nothing can be done with them, something must be done about them. But I digress.) Today all I can think about is whether they were in withdrawal or otherwise under the destructive influence of adverse/side effects of prescription medication! 

[eileen1111]

@Ariel I think about this as well - the romanticisation of the 'tortured artist genius poet' figure downplays the potential role of psychiatric 'treatments' which most likely worsened their conditions aka the 'tortured' part is inflicted on them by the pathologisation of neurodivergence..... but perhaps this isn't the thread to discuss it in haha

[Ariel]

Kindness

 

Naomi Shihab Nye - 1952-

 

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

 

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

 

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

 

From Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

 

Edited May 24, 2022 by ChessieCat
Resized font

[Ariel]

@arbor

 

 

Praise the Rain

BY JOY HARJO

 

Praise the rain; the seagull dive

The curl of plant, the raven talk—

Praise the hurt, the house slack

The stand of trees, the dignity—

Praise the dark, the moon cradle

The sky fall, the bear sleep—

Praise the mist, the warrior name

The earth eclipse, the fired leap—

Praise the backwards, upward sky

The baby cry, the spirit food—

Praise canoe, the fish rush

The hole for frog, the upside-down—

Praise the day, the cloud cup

The mind flat, forget it all—

 

Praise crazy. Praise sad.

Praise the path on which we're led.

Praise the roads on earth and water.

Praise the eater and the eaten.

Praise beginnings; praise the end.

Praise the song and praise the singer.

 

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

 

 

Joy Harjo, "Praise the Rain" from Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings.  Copyright © 2015 by Joy Harjo.

[Ariel]

 

The Empty Glass

BY LOUISE GLÜCK

 

I asked for much; I received much.

I asked for much; I received little, I received

next to nothing.

 

And between? A few umbrellas opened indoors.

A pair of shoes by mistake on the kitchen table.

 

O wrong, wrong—it was my nature. I was

hard-hearted, remote. I was

selfish, rigid to the point of tyranny.

 

But I was always that person, even in early childhood.

Small, dark-haired, dreaded by the other children.

I never changed. Inside the glass, the abstract

tide of fortune turned

from high to low overnight.

 

Was it the sea? Responding, maybe,

to celestial force? To be safe,

I prayed. I tried to be a better person.

Soon it seemed to me that what began as terror

and matured into moral narcissism

might have become in fact

actual human growth. Maybe

this is what my friends meant, taking my hand,

telling me they understood

the abuse, the incredible **** I accepted,

implying (so I once thought) I was a little sick

to give so much for so little.

Whereas they meant I was good (clasping my hand intensely)—

a good friend and person, not a creature of pathos.

 

I was not pathetic! I was writ large,

like a queen or a saint.

 

Well, it all makes for interesting conjecture.

And it occurs to me that what is crucial is to believe

in effort, to believe some good will come of simply trying,

a good completely untainted by the corrupt initiating impulse

to persuade or seduce—

 

What are we without this?

Whirling in the dark universe,

alone, afraid, unable to influence fate—

 

What do we have really?

Sad tricks with ladders and shoes,

tricks with salt, impurely motivated recurring

attempts to build character.

What do we have to appease the great forces?

 

And I think in the end this was the question

that destroyed Agamemnon, there on the beach,

the Greek ships at the ready, the sea

invisible beyond the serene harbor, the future

lethal, unstable: he was a fool, thinking

it could be controlled. He should have said

I have nothing, I am at your mercy.

 

 

“The Empty Glass” from The Seven Ages by Louise Glück.  Copyright © 2001 by Louise Glück.  

 

 

Edited June 7, 2022 by Ariel

[eileen1111]

Be Quick 

 

I've no companion

bar a shadow

pointing backwards.

 

Dear life, don't ghost me yet!
Find me a home

through stumbling rain.

 

(by Denise Riley)

 

 

[eileen1111]

Revolutionary letter #1

 

I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life
my spirit measured out, in bits, spread over
the roulette table, I recoup what I can
nothing else to shove under the nose of the maitre de jeu
nothing to thrust out the window, no white flag
this flesh all I have to offer, to make the play with
this immediate head, what it comes up with, my move
as we slither over this go board, stepping always
(we hope) between the lines

 

(by Diane di Prima)

[kate1385]

This Is the Time to Be Slow

 

This is the time to be slow,

Lie low to the wall

Until the bitter weather passes.

 

Try, as best you can, not to let

The wire brush of doubt 

Scrape from your heart 

All sense of yourself 

And your hesitant light.

 

If you remain generous,

Time will come good; 

And you will find your feet

Again on fresh pastures of promise,

Where the air will be kind 

And blushed with beginning. 

 

John O’Donohue

 

Edited June 11, 2022 by ChessieCat
edited as per member's request

[Chlo]

Trust the Author

 

I dropped a glass the other day. It slipped right out of my hand, hit the wood floor, and shattered. As I bent down to pick up the broken pieces, I knelt amongst the fractured remains of the glass and I became overwhelmed. I leaned against a nearby cabinet and many suppressed emotions found their escape through my tears.

I have been living through a season of shattering. My life, once so reliable, secure, and predictable, was broken into pieces. All that I once knew so well, I no longer recognized. Like a gardener in autumn, God has cut back things in my life that overgrew their space, became dormant, or no longer produced healthy growth.

He was breaking me down, and it was painful.

Unlike the glass, however, God did not scoop up the pieces and throw me away. No! He took the pieces and he lovingly began to fasten them back together again. I am not who I was before and I am not yet fully mended, but I know he is working and rebuilding me. Piece-by-piece he is collecting me and not abandoning me.

My life may not look like I thought it would, but that doesn’t mean God isn’t working. It doesn’t mean God isn’t good.

If you are living in a “shattering” season, just know your story isn’t over. I know you see the scattered remains on the floor and wonder how you will ever be made whole again—this is where we must trust God’s timing and God’s way.

It is tempting to want to fix everything yourself, but I beg you to resist. His plan is ALWAYS better than ours. A book is never written in one version. It must be edited, re-edited, and edited again.; rewrite after rewrite until it is finished, until it is as good as it can be.

Let the Author and the Finisher of our faith continue to write your story. Let the Creator keep creating. Let the Potter keep molding. Let the Artist keep drawing. It may look broken to you, but God sees endless possibilities; clay ready to be shaped and molded, a blank canvas for his masterpiece, and an empty page for him to compose your story.

 

You will be whole again.

[manymoretodays]

@ArtiI loved your poetry share and so adding here to our topic.  Thank you. :

What moves me

One should let things

have their own, silent

undisturbed development,

that comes deeply from within

and cannot be forced

or accelerated by anything.

All is full-born

and then

bear...1

 

Maturing as the tree,

that does not push its saps

and stands staunchly in the storms of spring,

without fear

that after it perhaps

a summer would not come.

Yet it comes!

 

However, it comes only to the patient ones,

who are there, as if eternity

lies before them,

so careless, quiet and wide...

 

One should be patient

with the unresolved in the heart,

and attempt to love the questions themselves,

like closed rooms,

and like books, that in a very special language

have been written.

 

What matters is to live everything.

When one lives the questions,

one will maybe live gradually

without noticing,

on a special day,

into the answer.

 

 

Im Not a particularly intellectual guy

But somehow i think it fits for us 

 

Arti 

[kate1385]

Sharing a poem by John Roedel

 

This isn't how I planned for 

my life to look like," I whispered

under my breath as I walked to my car

 

"tell me about it,"

an eavesdropping cloud

replied to me from above 

 

I looked up and watched

the cloud billow between looking

like a dove and an open hand

 

the cloud continued:

 

"I used to be a snowfield in Montana.

I used to be a dewdrop kiss on a lily.

I used to be a puddle in a parking lot.

I used to be a river in Mexico.

I used to be a glacier.

I used to be a waterfall mist in a jungle.

 

I used to be so many things."

 

"doesn't that make you sad?" I asked the cloud

 

"it used to - but not anymore," the cloud replied while wrapping herself around me like a scarf. "I don't think either of us were created to stay the same form our entire life."

 

"I’m not sure I can let go of my old life," I sighed.

 

"oh you simply must," the cloud whispered in my ear. 

" because once you release what you used to be

and embrace who you are meant to be now - 

something amazing will happen," the cloud said

 

"what's that?" I asked while looking at my hands that were beginning to billow and shapeshift. 

 

"you'll start to float."

 

and with that my feet lifted off the ground

[Chlo]

10 minutes ago, kate1385 said:

Sharing a poem by John Roedel

 

This isn't how I planned for 

my life to look like," I whispered

under my breath as I walked to my car

 

"tell me about it,"

an eavesdropping cloud

replied to me from above 

 

I looked up and watched

the cloud billow between looking

like a dove and an open hand

 

the cloud continued:

 

"I used to be a snowfield in Montana.

I used to be a dewdrop kiss on a lily.

I used to be a puddle in a parking lot.

I used to be a river in Mexico.

I used to be a glacier.

I used to be a waterfall mist in a jungle.

 

I used to be so many things."

 

"doesn't that make you sad?" I asked the cloud

 

"it used to - but not anymore," the cloud replied while wrapping herself around me like a scarf. "I don't think either of us were created to stay the same form our entire life."

 

"I’m not sure I can let go of my old life," I sighed.

 

"oh you simply must," the cloud whispered in my ear. 

" because once you release what you used to be

and embrace who you are meant to be now - 

something amazing will happen," the cloud said

 

"what's that?" I asked while looking at my hands that were beginning to billow and shapeshift. 

 

"you'll start to float."

 

and with that my feet lifted off the ground

@kate1385thank you for sharing, just beautiful ☁️ 

[kate1385]

@ChloGlad you like it 😊

[littlebird]

The Way the Forest Shelters

by Rabia al-Basri

 

I know about love the way fields know about light,

the way the forest shelters,

 

the way an animal’s divine raw desire seeks to unite with whatever might please its soul -

without a single strange thought of remorse.

 

There is a powerful delegation in us that lobbies every moment for contentment.

 

How will you ever find peace unless you yield to love

the way the gracious earth does to our hand’s impulse?

 

Rabia of Basri (c.717-801, Iraq) was a Sufi poet pre-dating Rumi, who came from a life of strife and struggle to create art that lasts the ages.

[Ariel]

The Question
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

 

All day, I replay these words:

Is this the path of love?

I think of them as I rise, as

I wake my children, as I wash dishes,

as I drive too close behind the slow

blue Subaru, Is this the path of love?

Think of these words as I stand in line

at the grocery store,

think of them as I sit on the couch

with my daughter. Amazing how

quickly six words become compass,

the new lens through which to see myself

in the world. I notice what the question is not.

Not, “Is this right?” Not,

“Is this wrong?” It just longs to know

how the action of existence

links us to the path of love.

And is it this? Is it this? All day,

I let myself be led by the question.

All day I let myself not be too certain

of the answer. Is it this?

Is this the path of love? I ask 

as I wait for the next word to come.

[Ariel]

Found Letter

by Joshua Weiner 

 

What makes for a happier life, Josh, comes to this:   

Gifts freely given, that you never earned;   

Open affection with your wife and kids;   

Clear pipes in winter, in summer screens that fit;   

Few days in court, with little consequence;   

A quiet mind, a strong body, short hours   

In the office; close friends who speak the truth;   

Good food, cooked simply; a memory that’s rich   

Enough to build the future with; a bed   

In which to love, read, dream, and re-imagine love;   

A warm, dry field for laying down in sleep,   

And sleep to trim the long night coming;   

Knowledge of who you are, the wish to be   

None other; freedom to forget the time;   

To know the soul exceeds where it’s confined   

Yet does not seek the terms of its release,   

Like a child’s kite catching at the wind   

That flies because the hand holds tight the line.

[Ariel]

Sweet Darkness 

by David Whyte

 

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

 

When your vision has gone,
no part of the world can find you.

 

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

 

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

 

The dark will be your home
tonight.

 

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

 

You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.

 

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

 

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

 

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

 

is too small for you.

 

[Ariel]

Making a Fist

BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

    We forget that we are all dead men conversing with dead men.

                                                                  —Jorge Luis Borges

 

For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,

I felt the life sliding out of me,

a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.

I was seven, I lay in the car

watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.

My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.

 

“How do you know if you are going to die?”

I begged my mother.

We had been traveling for days.

With strange confidence she answered,

“When you can no longer make a fist.”

 

Years later I smile to think of that journey,

the borders we must cross separately,

stamped with our unanswerable woes.

I who did not die, who am still living,

still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,

clenching and opening one small hand.

 

 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54308/making-a-fist

[Ariel]

IF THE SHOE DOESN’T FIT

you take it off

of course you take it off

it doesn’t worry you

it isn’t your shoe

 

- by Naomi Shihab Nye