The Poetry of Life

When I was a kid, I loved writing poems.  I especially loved creating lines that rhyme.  So when I got to college and had the chance to choose between majoring in poetry or short stories within my creative writing major, I chose poetry.  But I had this professor (the only one who taught poetry) who told us that none of our poems could rhyme.  I was thrown off my game and struggled to figure out what he wanted me to write.  After that, I switched over to short stories.  I had a wonderful professor for that, and I learned to write dialogue, which has served me well in the script writing I have done since then.

After that, most of the poetry I read came from Shel Silverstein and Dr Seuss as I shared books like The Giving Tree and Oh The Places You’ll Go with my kids.  By the way, both of these books are worth reading, especially if you’re going to have to read it over and over night after night at bedtime.  The rest of the poetry I knew came from song lyrics:

“The River”

by Garth Brooks

You know a dream is like a river

Ever changin’ as it flows

And a dreamer’s just a vessel

that must follow where it goes

Trying to learn from what’s behind you

And never knowing what’s in store

Makes each day a constant battle

Just to stay between the shores.

But I, myself, didn’t attempt to write any poetry again for many years.  Recently I have come back to poetry, but I was still trying to fit my creations into some sort of mold that would make them more critically acclaimed and marketable.  Then I realized that I was writing something that wasn’t really reflective of me and what I wanted to write.

So then I started collecting some poems that I like, poems by Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and James Dillet Freeman, just to name a few.  And I realized that, like Barry Manilow music, although they may not be popular, some of these works really speak to my soul.  And it doesn’t matter if they are critically acclaimed.  What matters is how these works make me feel.

Here's one I read just recently that I especially like:

Hearts Like Wildflowers

by Nikita Gill

I hope you are blessed

with a heart like a wildflower.

Strong enough to rise again

after being trampled upon,

tough enough to weather

the worst of the summer storms,

and able to grow and flourish

even in the most broken places.

Like all great works of art, the poetry I enjoy reminds me of a truth about life that I have forgotten because my focus has been elsewhere.  With that in mind, I picked up the pen again, and wrote this poem just yesterday:

I AM

one drop seemingly separate

from stream, river, or ocean—

the larger whole wherein individuals

join together, indistinguishable…

Forgotten this unity,

replaced by a belief

that our differences

are greater than 

ONENESS

When, in truth, we are the same

H2O.  Our universal composition

connects together

ALL

Remember the flow moving

us each to our final destination

IS

a unified fate.

Although my husband doesn’t understand why I would write a poem without any kind of rhythm or rhyme, I think I finally expressed something I wanted to say.  This doesn’t mean I won’t write poetry that rhymes in the future, but I am glad to have come back to poetry and the beauty it brings to my life.  Words that are thought-provoking and speak universal truths can also be found in plays, books, and films, just to name a few.  Take a moment today and find something beautiful—a bird’s song, a flower’s color, the smell of fresh bread baking—in life to celebrate.

Joke:  Which butterfly rules?  The monarch.

Quote:  “I have never started a poem whose end I knew.  Writing a poem is discovering” – Robert Frost

Advice:  Don’t get so busy that you can notice something beautiful like a sunset or the way the wind blows a tree’s leaves.