(Baltimore Oriole – Male)
Here I am.
How did I get to this place at this moment? How did I end up sitting at this cracked pine table at 5 a.m. on a May morning in 2014?
Did I choose this place?
Or did it choose me?
Did I choose to work through Dave Harrity’s Making Manifest: On Faith, Creativity, and the Kingdom at Hand?
Or did the book choose me?
Think of all the things that emerged in your experience that led you to this room–all the love and tragedy you’ve lived. Gain and loss. Peace and chaos. All of it so real and present here.
Think of all the people that once occupied this space, their lives . . .
You’re part of a history that you can never know . . .
This ground is holy . . .
The history of the present is burning all around you . . .
from Day 3, Making Manifest…
The Keurig sputters its final drips of coffee where it sits on the Hoosier cabinet that’s had a long family history. Above the kitchen sink to my right hangs a sign, like an oversized license plate, that reads, “Forestdell Farms, since 1854.” I’ve always wondered why the farm’s name is spelled with only one “R” when my husband’s grandfather spelled his with two–Forrest.
I’m in this place because my parents married and birthed me. They bought primitive log cabins nearly 200 miles away from where I sit–on a lake, on U.S. 27, the same road I’m gazing at out the window at this moment.
I’m in this place because I went to a nursing school instead of a university. And because afterwards I moved to Ann Arbor and eventually worked in a doctor’s office–where I met my husband who was a pharmaceutical representative at that time. Who’d grown up on a dairy farm.
In this place.
I’m in this place because after several moves out of state, several heartaches and joys, we returned to Michigan in a move that seemed God-ordained and God-orchestrated when we “redeemed” my husband’s childhood home, the one his parents had sold years before.
How did that happen? It wasn’t even for sale.
The house is quiet except for the flow of water in the cat’s fountain, the hum of the refrigerator, the tinkle of dog tags, and claws clicking on vinyl.
The small of my back hurts, and I hunch over like a cat, stretch it, sigh as I remind myself of my age and how I’ll one day be history. I remember that Mother’s Day is coming up, and I have not had a mother for two-and-a-half years. She was only 20 years older than I am when she died from a brain tumor.
I don’t want to die from a brain tumor.
I don’t want to die within 20 years.
I glance outside, past the bell that used to hang at the centennial house across the road–the house that’s dying. Past the birdbath and the basketball net. I “see” my inlaws’ Tow-Low trailer and the green John Deere tractor and remember how I sat in this same place 43 years ago (this month!) when Dennis brought me home for the first time, and his mother served me lunch.
In this place.
I gaze out the same windows she did.
I miss my mother-in-law.
The sign above the kitchen sink reminds me how I’m part of a history I can never know except, of course, for the stories. Yet I’ve become part of that history.
Tell about a time you felt a vivid sense of awe–when you were speechless, frozen, or dumbstruck. Remember, dig deep. And don’t necessarily go for the first thing that pops up.
From Day 4, Making Manifest . . .
The first things that pop up are the time I saw our daughter for the first time and when our adoption caseworker told me they had a baby for us, already pre-named with the only (and secret) name we’d chosen.
But then there’s an oriole with polished feathers that shimmer in the sun. He’s eating jelly from our new feeder…
“With our words,” Harrity tells us, “we bring realities into being, we track our history, we polish our present, and we carve out the direction of our future; we renew, awaken, and build toward redemption.”
“Practices of words are practices of being . . . ”
“Being is where we enter. Creating is an open door.”
Here I am.
Opening a door.
(Baltimore Oriole – Female)
On Day 7, Harrity asked us to create a 10-line poem titled “Awakening,” created from words and phrases that stand out from the week’s writing.
Awakening
I remember the way you used to speak to me
in those grape jelly days by the hem of the woods
while we hunkered down in a green fern fort
or floated in a rowboat amid a horseshoe’d lake.
Still.
Then you wrapped me with a soul-safe sense of simplicity,
but now? Now I am distracted and dis-tracked by many things,
shredding a bit around the edges like an oriole-nibbled orange half.
But here I am, awake in this one silent moment.
Speak to me the way you used to.
Now it’s your turn. If you’re journeying through Making Manifest this month, feel free to link up a post below. If not, maybe you’d like to share your day 7 poem in the comments.
And here’s a question for everyone: What do you like or dislike about poetry? Why? What experiences have shaped this opinion?
Also linking with Jennifer and Emily
Oh Sandy! I’ve not read much of your writing, and this is simply breathtaking! You have awakened me this day to such beauty. Thank you!
Lynn
Thank you so much, Lynn.
Beautiful Post. Inspiring.
I love poetry. I have loved poetry for as long as I can remember.
The word. The words. The essence of what is.
Here; from one month ago:
Royal Fireworks
I am now writing
About yesterday. An angel
High up in pine tree.
Two doves in a tree.
A woodpecker pecking.
Geese flying overhead.
Playing Frisbee with my dog.
The way my dog knows when I
Pick up my camera we are going outside.
Learning story of Handel’s
Music for the Royal Fireworks.
The music providing a background
For the Royal Fireworks the wooden building
Caught fire. Over twelve thousand people
Rushed to get away. Causing a tree-hour traffic jam
Of carriages, after the main route
Was closed due to the collapse
Of the central arch of the newly built London Bridge.
I listened to the Overture
In the car on my way
To my physical. Stopping once
To photograph The Lower Mill Pond
In Easthampton, Massachusetts
Where I once lived.
The nurse said we now ask
Everyone two questions.
Do you feel depressed?
Have you recently fallen?
No and no. And I said
To her I remember being
Depressed. Still so clear.
I was waiting in the doctor’s office
And I picked up an magazine and wept.
When the doctor entered the room
I help up the magazine, Newsweek
I think, and on the cover a photo
Two young women. One from Palestine
And the other from Israel. They had
Killed each other. And there
In the doctor’s office I wept.
I took medicine for a few years.
Those feelings are gone.
I told the doctor I had been feeling
Light-headed and that my back hurt.
He talked to be about the foot railing
At bars. Made to help people
Drink longer without hurting
Their backs. He said I should
Try using a foot stool when cooking
Or cleaning the dishes. Raise one leg
For a few minutes and the the other.
I said to him it sounds
Like a Seinfeld joke. And I was happy
To hear my blood pressure was down.
Back in the car heading home
I heard to story of The Tam O’Shanter Overture
By Sir Malcolm Arnold; based on a famous poem
By Robert Burns depicting
Tam O’Shanter drunk. Leaving the pub
Tam rides home on his horse Meg.
A storm is brewing. He sees
the local haunted church lit up,
witches and warlocks dancing.
The devil playing the bagpipes.
Tam is still drunk, still upon his horse,
Just on the edge of the light watching.
Amazed to see The witches are dancing
As the music intensifies and seeing
A witch in a short dress
He shouts,`Weel done, cutty-sark!’
(cutty-sark : “short shirt”).
The lights go out, the music
And dancing stops and many
Of the creatures lunge after Tam,
With the witches leading.
Tam spurs Meg to turn and flee
And drives the horse on towards the River Doon
As the creatures dare not cross a running stream.
The creatures give chase and the witches
Come so close to catching Tam and Meg
That they pull Meg’s tail off just as she reaches the bridge over the Doon.
What a story.
What a poem.
What great music.
Over dinner I tell Susan
Both stories and we talk
Later of framing art.
Wow ! There’s so much in this that captures me. I smiled that your dog knows you’re going out when you pick up your camera–not a leash.
And I never knew that about foot rails at the bar. I’m going to try a stool in my kitchen, I think.
You’ve framed a lot of art in these words, Bruce.
You made me smile.
I have had a lifelong relationship with words
thought I had left poetry for fiction
but it surfaced in my prose
flexing its muscles
now I just allow words to have their way
and try to not label them
I love poetic prose. 🙂
I picked up “If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things” by Jon McGregor for Lauren Winner’s workshop at LL a couple years ago. It’s a novel–not Christian. But filled with beautiful writing–“a prose poem of a novel” it says on the back cover. I haven’t read it. Just picked out a passage I loved for the workshop.
The first words:
If you listen, you can hear it.
The city, it sings.
If you stand quietly, at the foot of a garden, in the middle
of a street, on the roof of a house.
It’s clearest at night, when the sound cuts more sharply
across the surface of things, when the song reaches out to
a place inside you.
It’s a wordless song, for the most, but it’s a song all the
same, and nobody hearing it could doubt what it sings.
And the song sings the loudest when you pick out each
note.
It is a joy to read these words Sandra in this place…your musings and your poem…thanks for hosting us a place to feast on words and share our writings, our musings…place for making manifest!
Thanks for coming on this journey, Kel. I think it’s going to change all of us.
Posting my Awakening poem on a double-dog dare… 🙂 penned by a “poetry chicken.” Loved your poem, Sandy. Thankful you took your buddies up on their double-dog dare. The dare is spreading the love…
Awakening
The spade unearths, cuts.
There is no healing
without first the wound,
no gain
without first the coming into being,
no end
without first beginning.
Tilled,
I am the soil,
I am the seed.
Cover me,
until I awaken.
This is absolutely stunning, Miss Poetry Chicken. Every line.
And that last line? Just oh.
I wrote this for my friend who has cancer to awaken him to hope. I purposely employed lots of lyric rhyme (which may sound over the top a bit), because it is his favorite kind of poetry.
Hope Come Down on a Late-Winter Monday in Des Peres Park
by Lynn D. Morrissey
Sitting on this metal curve of bench,
at a bend in the slate-gray lake,
I’m suddenly awake—aware that a soundless wind
ruffles liquescence into layered scallops,
like feathers of a dove’s breeze-borne wing.
As I pray for my friend L.D.’s well-being,
I sense that Holy Spirit, Himself, a dove,
hovers above the water with ease,
singing on a fresh exhale of love His notes of power
and healing hope.
It’s not time to grope for answers to mysteries,
rhymes, reasons, and why’s,
to dissect seasons of life and strife for logical explanations,
to wrestle with calculations and the wherefores of disease,
but to look to the glorious skies, reflected in the
wind-blown lake, to implore Heaven’s help for our sake,
to know beyond shadows and doubts,
that ofttimes the Dove mysteriously comes down
unexpectedly
to stir the waters we’re incapable of moving,
to prove His palpable presence with exultation,
brushing us with His wing—
a holy kiss of elation,
an embrace of expectation—
to help us know that
soundless things are audible,
unseen things are visible,
and miracles are undeniable.
Oh Lynn. I read this aloud several times. It’s so beautiful. And those last three lines… lingering there. Thank you so much for sharing it!
Sandy, I had not seen your comment. Thanks for your generosity. I have just learned that my friend is declining with a brain tumor and is mostly in bed now and confused. I am heartbroken, yet still not giving up hope and praying for his miracle! Your words mean a lot to me, especially in light of why I wrote this poem. Thank you!
Lynn
I assume it’s malignant? I. hate. brain cancer. I know you’re a blessing to your friend. Praying and hoping with you.
Yes, the same tumor as your mom. Now I know why you hate brain cancer. I am so terribly sorry about your mother. I just read what you wrote about her on today’s post, in response to me. I’m so very sorry, Sandy.
My friend collapsed in January 2013, and this was discovered. He has been fighting so valliantly. HIs story is amazing, and he has come to the Lord. Please email me @ words@brick.net (only if you have the time), and I will tell you a bit more.
Thanks for your compassion.
Lynn
picturesque, Sandy – loved it!
and all these responses =) soooo fun – what a blessing and encouragement to creative exploration!
ty for initiating and hosting ;))
Isn’t this fun, fun, fun? I feel myself stretching, stretching…
Day 7
I want
my life
to be a
poem
of
colors vibrant
flowers on
spring’s cusp.
Hope like a
rainbow
in misty
waterfall.
Instead
broken
shards,
bolted
lightening,
dry-bone
wilderness
I’m
not
too fond
of
the
current
poem.
I’m so glad you posted this, Lane. So many others are in this wilderness of waiting, too–where beautiful poems are growing and sending roots deep in the dark.
Awakening
Stillness
In this place
In this moment
Awakening
Now
Your whole post nourishes, Sandy. Thank you! You know I’m not fully participating in this, but after reading April’s post I went back to my own and re-ordered some of the words. When I ‘updated’ and checked the page I discovered the power of words. Some refused to be controlled. Made me laugh. 🙂
I love this, Carol. Moment by moment…
Both your post and poem blew me away . . . This is definitely a book I need to read.
Blessings!
Yes, you do. You’ll love it.
You have a beautiful site. Thankful I found it through #TellHisStory. I’m looking forward to lingering here more often! Thank you for sharing this – “Being is where we enter. Creating is an open door.”
Gratefully,
Renee
So glad you’ve entered here, Renee. Sorry it’s taken me a few days to get back to welcome you.
I really wanted to join you in this series but I don’t have time unfortunately but I’m soaking in the good writing here by you and others in the comments. Love this Sandy!
Shelly, you always amaze me. How ever do you do all you do? Welcome back!
Love
Lynn
PS All you write awakens me! =] Lov eyou!
Hi there, sweet sister. I’d love to have had you join us, but I get that time thing. You know I do! xo