While I was on my blogging hiatus, I actually started another blog. Contradictory, right? It was a blog that I wanted to devote solely to “real” writing (whatever that means). I wrote a total of 3 entries. I guess I’m better at “fake” writing. Ha. 🙂 One thing that did come out of that failed blog was rediscovering my love of poetry. Here’s a bit of what I wrote about poetry:
Poetry was my first love. I remember learning about poetry in fourth grade and going home and scribbling line after line of it, practically drunk with the thrill of finding a rhyme. I remember being ecstatic when my teacher read one of my poems aloud (I believe it began: “Fish, fish in the blue sea,/Please come out and play with me”), and I filled notebooks with poems, then stories and the beginnings of novels. I know that I am not a good poet, but I do love to shape words into lines and stanzas.
I’ve said before that poetry is like chocolate for the soul, and I really do think that. There are few things so satisfying as reading a well-crafted poem.
Though it’s not well-crafted, I thought I would share a poem I wrote this summer and have not edited since. Reader be warned: mediocrity ahead!
Together Separate
In a haze of pain and glory, you enter
the world, your cry filling the room
and my heart at once. I look on you,
flesh of my flesh, and marvel. You seem familiar
and yet a stranger. My fingers fumble as I try to feed you,
your eyes closed and shut away. I do not know
how to do this.
Through the blur of midnight wakings,
unceasing cries, spit-upon articles of clothing,
I look down and realize I love you, though you
know nothing of love yet, only the basic rhythms of
life. I gaze into your eyes, find myself lost in their trusting depths,
and we are both newly born.
Do you have a favorite poem? Share it with me!