I glide through
Ageless galaxies.
Eternity
Does quake.
I soar through
Starstuff old and new
To show you that
I wake.
I pass through
Endless light-years,
And secrets of
The deep,
All to drive
Away the beasts
So you, my dear,
Can sleep.
-
-
This was written as folklore for a novel I’m writing. It’s supposed to be a song.
The lady of the brook
Sees the moon—he creeps above,
Dancing on her surface.
O! what could it be but love?The lady of the brook
Waits each night for his return,
Never knowing that for her
His heart will never yearn. -
which holy garden
could have been
mother to roses
of such sheen?slumbering in the
promise sweet
of a september
soon to greet—autumn so painless,
they’ll forget
the scorching summer
lives on yet.see how this flower,
clothed in red,
yawning, bows her
pretty head. -
I stepped out today to find all of my flowers had bloomed.
Gathering some into a vase, I realized why it’s important to wait for certain things—and to appreciate what’s going on during the wait, even in moments when it seems no change is happening.
The flowers are stunning, aren’t they? If I had rushed them, if I had not waited out the long hot summer, if I had not endured August weeks of dryness during which no flowers grew—I would not have gathered so many colors today.
The cliche is true: the best things are worth the wait, every moment of it.
-
Wildflowers spring to life where they will
As, above, the sun sets on my sorrow.
I didn’t think that I had tears to cry still.
This sadness will last well into the morrow.
The flashes of blue and dots of white
Dancing in patches of summer dirt
Nod sympathetically to my plight,
As if they could comprehend my hurt.
A day will soon come to bid them farewell
When they bow their heads in graceful death;
Not yet!—I have secrets yet to tell,
But cannot catch my breath.
Butterfly, flit from leaf to leaf,
Sending my message to heaven’s door.
Meanwhile, I’ll make peace with my grief,
Here on the cold stone floor. -
I walk in mist
One chilly night,
When sorrow-clouds
Eclipse the light.
They fill my lungs
In every breath
With loaded air
Tasting of death.The street lights wonder,
“Who is she?”—
They’ve never seen
The likes of me.
Behind their thick
Church-veil of cloud,
The stars, too, gossip—
Not aloud.The cobblestones
Beneath my feet
Send questions up
And down the street;
Yet through it all,
I pay no mind.
I walk in mist;
They stay behind. -
With stars and
Streetlights
Guiding me,
I got lost all the same.Searching for
The sunrise, I
Heard whispers
Of my name.Heavenly
Dance slows for
Nobody,
Poets and sleepers alike.Starlight and
Streetlight will
Keep their shine
Long into the night. -
Eternity
Passes, like
Dregs of the
Milky Way
Trickling through
Space. Cosmic
Light fades in
The heat of
Ancient Sun. -
What am I going to do when the season ends and my flowers begin to die?
How will I cope when I go outside in the morning and, instead of seeing a new darling has bloomed, I find the stalks becoming dry and crinkly—these gentle plants that brought butterflies and bees and joy to my days?
I have a grudge against death and its habit of taking things. I know it’s unreasonable and part of me believes death is not the end. But usually all I feel is fear that the end will come.
Now it’s a flower, later a loved one. Eventually, it will be all of us. Let’s hope we inspire people to plant new flowers in the years to come.
-
In Hozier’s Work Song, I noticed a point in the beginning when the chorus catches a breath. It’s difficult to hear if you are caught in the beauty of the song, but now that I’ve heard it, I think it’s one of the loveliest moments.
Have you ever thought of the pause before a note? The sound is full of promise and effort. By it we realize that the people behind the songs we love are human; they, like us, need air.
When we know these artists are creatures like us, we feel closer to them. If we wanted to, we could also make art that would leave an audience breathless. True beauty comes when we lose the fear of letting our humanity show.
-
Writing a story is like growing a flower in the sense that you can’t rush it. The plant won’t bloom if you don’t give it the care it requires: some need more water, others wither if you give them too much.
I learned through gardening and writing that it’s best not to control things too much. If you smother anything, it will suffocate. The blooms in my garden prove that the wait, though taxing, is worthwhile. So do the drafts on my hard drive.
Flowers that take longest to grow are not necessarily lovelier. The zinnia and the Morning Glory both take my breath away. In this way, long stories are not better: a thousand-page Dostoevsky immerses me, as does the short A Christmas Carol.
The same is true for poetry, even free-verse. I have gained much from fantasy novels as well as history books. There is no point trying to control everything because, if loved enough, flowers and stories are always lovely.
I’m familiar with the sensation of wanting to finish writing sooner. Rushing a story will not make it better. A seedling must be tended with patience if we want flowers; good novels require the same care. We should let each novel grow as tall or bold as it wishes.
We cannot control everything–if we do, we risk destroying it.
I’m turning away from methods that promise a novel in thirty days. Instead, I’ll focus on watering the flowers: nourishing the story and treating it as if it were alive. I know the story will be happier in the long run, and so will I.
-
Recently I learned that a friend with whom I had been very close a few years ago died suddenly. I don’t know the details and don’t think I could handle getting into them. It has unearthed a whole new set of emotions in me, things I had only read about before in books.
There’s the personal shame, the wish that I had been a better friend and not lost contact. It storms with the logical bit of me which says there is no way I can keep in touch with everyone all the time, that sometimes friends drift apart because life works that way.
There are the echoes. In the days since learning of her passing, I’ve found myself remembering almost every conversation we ever had—vividly. Scraps of advice about hair care and whether a certain artist could sing. Memories of that time we bonded over an online game. And when we agreed that a book we had both read wasn’t so great after all.
I remember music she had recommended to me and know that those songs will never be the same again. At this moment, Whisper by A Fine Frenzy comes to mind—with the haunting lyrics I’m down to a whisper / In a daydream / On a hill… It has always been a beautiful song but now it takes on new significance.
Every soul matters. Every friend does, too. It doesn’t matter if you only ever met them online—now I know that, when you learn they are gone, it hurts all the same. It’s confusing at first, and then emotions come flooding in, and you find yourself wishing to go back to that summer a few years ago…just for a while.
Take care of your friends. If ever you feel the nagging sense to say hello, or suddenly remember their birthday, don’t waste a chance. Take care of yourself because people do care about you. And—I would do well to learn this—if you lose someone, it fixes nothing to blame yourself.
I don’t know the details, but I do know we will never chat again, and that song will most certainly make me tear up for the rest of my life. Take care of your friends, even if they seem fine—and take care of yourself.
