It's raining and the cardinals are in
the puddle beneath the bird feeder filled with safflower seeds and
for a nanosecond I feel sorry for them-- out in the elements of
Winter. But then I change : I want to be more like them. No, I want
to BE them-- outside with all the air and trees and mud between toes,
cold rain on my face. How we spend so much of our lives inside,
encapsulated away from earth, stars from which we came. No wonder
we're so lonely. No wonder we all feel we're living inside ourselves,
disconnected.
I'm reading these poems by a poet who
moved to my hometown. She throws around words like horse, hay,
thoroughbred and I want to say, Those are MY words. That is MY
hometown you're writing about. Like Lexington is my child I want
to protect her. I want to be the one who tells her story. This poet
has 4 books of poems out, only a few years older than I am, and as I
read her newest, I keep thinking, why are my poems not good enough
for a book, for a pretty, paper-back cover. Who chooses who is heard.
Am I not worthy, do I not have things worth hearing to say, have I
not proved myself enough in journals, in lifetimes, in trauma, in
love? Is it something I'm doing wrong-- too little or too much of?
The hours, years I've
dedicated to writing, writing dedicated to me. All the poets who have
shaped me, who told me over and over: write what you know. Write
poems. I feel now failed by.
So yeah-- I envy the birds-- out wild in the rain, ungroomed feathers, in the puddles, beneath a grey sky arteried by tree limbs. At least then, I'd be immediately loved, accepted-- a definite part of the published, tangible environment, like a book that can be held.
So yeah-- I envy the birds-- out wild in the rain, ungroomed feathers, in the puddles, beneath a grey sky arteried by tree limbs. At least then, I'd be immediately loved, accepted-- a definite part of the published, tangible environment, like a book that can be held.
