Monthly Archives: April 2013

National Poetry Month, 7 – 9

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NaPoWriMo 7 – A Mother Wonders

This is his birthday.
He is an adult, of age.
What am I to do?

NaPoWriMo 8 – ottava rima

Remember me when you are gone away,
for you’re the one who goes, while I must bide.
Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to stay;
You’ve things to do, and I still have my pride.
If you should think of it, call me some day —
Don’t promise; then it won’t seem that you lied.
And if your road should lead you back to me,
I’ll probably still be here…probably.

NaPoWriMo 9 – Vanished

Coffee, half-finished,
cold; back door standing open
to the summer night.

Shadows, Part Five

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Shadow:  (1) an inseparable companion or follower  (2) pervasive and dominant influence

The son of a well-known minister of the gospel ended his own life a few nights ago.  By all accounts, he was a loving and beloved young man, sensitive and compassionate to the pain of others.  Despite his parents’ and his own best efforts to find help through medicine, counseling, and God knows how much prayer, he succumbed to the shadow.

I think it is truly impossible for people who have not had close dealings with mental illness to grasp how dogged a companion depression is, how deep and all-encompassing its reach.

I don’t know why the most carefully-tailored medication regimens, the most faithfully-followed lifestyle adjustment programs, the most empathetic counseling, the most fervent prayers don’t effect a cure.  But for many of us, they don’t.  We function well most of the time:  we work productively, we interact successfully with those around us.  We experience moments of genuine happiness.  We are grounded in grace and we have ardent hope for the future.  But the shadow is never fully dispelled.  It is only exiled just out of sight, always hovering, seeking new avenues by which to darken our thoughts, testing old ones again and again.  I don’t know why.

National Poetry Month, 4 – 6

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NaPoWriMo 4.1 – Unfortunate Conflict of Interest

It makes perfect sense;
however, my heart simply
will not come to terms.

NaPoWriMo 4.2 – A Fine Disregard for Awkward Facts

A lady does well,
I was taught, to learn not to
notice certain things.

NaPoWriMo 5 – a cinquain

Brahms and
birdsong mingle
through the summer screen door
serenading lavender and
jasmine.

NaPoWriMo 6 – a valediction

My calendar says
it’s thirteen years, yesterday,
since you went away

but I’m sure I heard
your voice just now in the still
of early morning.

My Life as a Real Girl, Part One

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Simply realizing that I was a broken doll didn’t result in my overnight transformation into a genuine real live girl.  No blue fairy with softly shimmering wings appeared to anoint me with starlight and set me on my way.  In fact, as I’ve mentioned before, my familiar little world had been badly shaken and my support network scattered at that time.  And to make matters even worse, as I thought, we moved to an area where I knew no one but my parents-in-law, who were in the middle of a bitterly ugly divorce.

With the remarkable clarity of fifteen years’ worth of hindsight, I recognize now that all these things had to be.  Had I stayed where I was, I most likely would have remained as I was:  desperately miserable but paralyzed to do anything.  The terrible upheaval in my life both forced and freed me to admit that I needed help from somewhere I hadn’t looked before.

National Poetry Month

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Inaugurated in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, April is observed in the U.S. as National Poetry Month.  For more information, ideas on how to celebrate poetry in your life, and to subscribe to receive a poem a day by email, visit http://www.poets.org.  April is also National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo), in which those of us who are so inclined are challenged to write a poem each day – more details are available at http://www.napowrimo.net.

Here are my efforts so far:

NaPoWriMo 1 – a found, mashed-up poem

Let us go then, you and I,
along the road less traveled by,
by which the sacred rivers run,
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.
Under the old trees let us lie
and see a star slide down the sky
while all the sands of life shall run
till time and times are done.

NaPoWriMo 2 – a lie

It never even
crossed my mind – the thought that you
could love me that way.

NaPoWriMo 3 – a late-night thanksgiving

Glory be to God for thunderstorms:
for lightning tearing through the midnight sky,
for echoes rumbling off into the dark.
Praise be for winds that roar,
for rain that pounds its reckless fury out
until it gentles to a lullaby.