21 Sep 2021 Leave a comment
to live in this world
you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go…
©Mary Oliver
*****
The inimitable Ms. Oliver’s punctuation choices make us slow down… read that again… count the ways… just as she intended. She subtly reminds us that poetry and prose are different animals, meanwhile enchanting us with her grasp of the world.
13 Sep 2021 5 Comments
Sometimes you can want something too much,
and in overreaching you out yourself as the one
clinging to what no longer exists.
The human drive to possess what we can’t have,
to understand the incomprehensible,
to make sense of cataclysmic change,
takes us, ironically, to where we didn’t want to be… a place by ourselves.
Is life simpler in the animal kingdom…
where the citizens are guided by instinct alone,
no motives, no emotions cluttering the landscape?
They live, they die, the world rolls on.
Life as it spools out doesn’t shock or dismay them,
their days are an endless struggle for simple survival,
existence distilled to its essence.
Is it better to live a life of awareness,
with all the heartache attached,
or to cruise like a lioness on the hunt,
defending your territory,
staying alive through experience and cunning?
On the windy days when the sky is more tan than blue,
my heart is on the grassy savannah.
©JSmith 09/13/2021
31 Oct 2015 Leave a comment
A heart full of hurt
bleeds tears ’til
the leading edge of
that first shocking searing
wave of pain subsides.
Exquisite the martyr’s misery
and indulgent —
this sort of wound must be
carefully cosseted ’til full
effect be borne.
Savored.
Brazenly wallowed in.
Attention must be paid!
And then
the heart requires those true
words that start to
put things right.
Patience, please —
give chase and
warrens open in the underground
where it hides ’til it’s ready to
come out.
That heart.
Yours.
05 Apr 2013 12 Comments
in My Thoughts, Poetry Tags: be real, brave, DPchallenge, friendship, learning, life, poetry, relationships, writing
I was never what you wanted me to be ...
your requirements were too cramped, my heart too wide,
and my eyes would not un-see
what you didn't know you'd showed me,
so I sweetly held my tongue and played the game.
I could now explain and justify ... but why?
Degradation is an IOU due no one, self-abasement ...
a crushing mortal sin.
The choices have been made
and life moves on.
There's surely nothing helpful left to say.
I never hated you for what you didn't want to know,
just wished your certainty extended outward.
And yet ... what does it matter in the end ...
for you are only you and I am I,
as regrets and might-have-beens all fade to black.
Judy L. Smith
Copyright April 2013
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