What a week!

It's been quite a week.  I broke my toe.  As a dancer, that breaks my heart.  I don't just dance because it's fun, I dance because I need to.  Even before I started Lindy hopping (<3) I had to move to music to be happy.  When I'm angry, I have to dance.  When I'm sad, I have to dance. When I'm happy I have to dance.  My movement expresses and releases my emotion in the same way my poetry does, but in a way it is the first, most raw expression.  To write good poetry, I have to be in a place where my head is clear enough that I can articulate my emotions and thoughts.  I when I dance, I can express things I haven't yet figured out how to say.  So, the frustration I have with my broken toe is very hard to express without dancing.  Ick. 

But my dear friend (who this blog is for) talked me down from my anger and sadness and got me to a place where I could write. Necklace I wrote last week, but never put up.  Resigning and Turning Pages were last night's projects.  Let me know what you think!


Necklace
I love to watch you holding,
softly as a new father,
the thin gold chain of my life.
I love to watch your eyes,
full of wonder, marveling
at its' shining fragility
lying dwarfed in your hands.


Resigning
I could leave you
one day you may wake up
and as your dreams fade
you will find emptiness-
a dent in the pillow where my head
always rested,
never again.

I could leave you
one afternoon you may call
with absent minded fingers
my worn number
and hear only the sound
of a nameless operator's
pre-recorded platitudes.

I could leave you
one night you may go to bed
and find only chilly
straigtened sheets
to welcome your worn body
and there will be nothing
to hold.

I will leave you
Someday soon you will blink
and I will be gone
leaving, like the gost of lilacs,
a dull sweet ache,
empty as your eyes
when they look at me.


Turning Pages
I count my life in books,
in the pages of old friends
who sit on my shelves
never higher than I can reach
standing tip toed on my desk chair.

I count my life in stories,
in characters I become
and the secrets they whisper
that tell me who I am today,
yesterday and tomorrow.

I count my life in pages
in turning and discovering
in the drawn out moments
of simple scenes rich, always,
with elegant lines of meaning.

I count my life in writing,
in old sentences that fill my heart
or empty it- leaving clarity,
replacing confusion and doubt
left in the wake of evanescent speech.