Wednesday, April 1, 2015

solace in words

Several months, rough ones, have passed since my last blog. Some of you know that Chris and I recently went through a miscarriage. It's been a difficult experience, but we're working through it and are hopeful for the future. This post isn't a cry for sympathy, but a chance to reflect on poetry as a processing agent. 


For days after the event, all I could do was replay the realization, and pour that energy into language. Despite all the pain, I'm glad that the experience reminded me of the power poetry has for me, personally, to work through the profound challenges of being human. 

I'm posting this as a dedication to words. Now that I'm teaching creative writing, I'm trying to write more frequently along with my students. Here's effort #1, a messy draft, but a new beginning sprung from a loss.

Missed


At the doctor’s office, I see a circle --

symbol of unity, wholeness,

so perfect, its round white skeleton
surprising the black.

Perfectly empty, devoid
of life, movement, heartbeat.
Still.

*

Still.
like this poem --
staunchly empty, devoid
of vitality, circular, repetitious.

*

Creating is hard work.
From nothing, we build circles
within us. We pour strangled hopes
into empty space.

Blood whirs, hearts beat double time,
our godlike ambitions surprise us.

*

But stilled, we are, by circles
so perfect in potential,
devoid of damage but
damning us with blankness.

How can I cry over nothing,
empty myself
over a geometrical imprint?

Yet I am rent in two when
I see a circle, at the doctor’s office.