A peom, mama? Now what could that be?

A poem, said she, is what we will read.

Let it drizzle into your ears

And melt away your fears

So the words that you hear will lull you to sleep

Will cradle you into the sweet arms of a dream.

At that point in my life I might have been four

A few years more and I’d hear poems, galore!

First grade brought Limericks, Ballads, Haikus

Judy Blume, Shel Silverstein, and Dr. Suess.

The rhyming in twos and words they explored

Sparked my imagination like never before.

While Junior High inspired short poems of love

The phase became something I grew sick of.

As time went on poems became a passerby

On the street at night when most appear sly.

Ignoring the character I could find if I looked above

I wouldn’t spare a glance in its direction thereof.

Then one day life grew sharper and colder;

I carried a boulder that grew with me as I got older.

I sought out peace

Turned to my past for relief

And I couldn’t believe what I found as I shouldered

A large box of poems from my closet, the memories I had smoldered.

Revived memories took hold of my senses

As I read the old poems, I saw life through new lenses.

The tree in the front yard I hadn’t noticed before

Now became an artful beauty that I couldn’t ignore.

Furthermore, the poems broke down my walls and defenses

I felt a resolve to change, to make right my offenses.

I’m lucky I found that dusty box that day

If I hadn’t, I’d forfeit the courage to say

That life is gift, a field of endless opportunity

Amidst hope and despair one can brighten a community

And one’s inner disunity and ultimate dismay

Can and will, with effort, dissolve away.

This is why I write, why I write anything at all:

So a great soul is released from this body so small.

I write to remember, I write to go back

To my childhood, a time without longing or lack.

Although I tend to stack emotions of hurt into a wall

Writing poetry continuously makes it fall