The Poetry Marathon

MATTER

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You can not help but be matter

—

Should you grow still

Turn bones to stone

Take no step further

The world would still find roost

In you chest and grow lush on your shoulder

—

Should you grow silent

Turn voice to quite

Vibrate no molecule

The hallow where your song belongs

Would still echo

A lament for lost lyrics

—

Should you hide from sight

turn only to outline

Cover over body and being

You will still cast a shadow

Where seeds would shelter

and ferns will thrive

—

You can not help but matter

(more…)

HEAL

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Healing and growth

Walk hand in hand

Through life’s twists and triumphs

During life’s conflicts and challenge

Fingers laced

One leads some days

Toward curiosity’s will-o’-wisp glow

Other days one pauses

Calls them to their senses

Mapping the worlds contours and creases

Together they wander

One may strain and the other bulk

One may leap and the other stumble

Yet

They only make it home

If they have the other

BODY

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Collection of bones and sinew

Star stuff and muscle memory

Billions of breaths forgotten

Heaved and sighed without witness

As my twin lungs carry me

Some etch on the panes of memory

Leave the silvered shadow of their image

For sunlight to decipher and time’s haze to trace

The sigh of baby’s sister’s downy scent

The lost scream of brother’s loss

The warmth of love’s first shared inhale

The ocean’s welcome on breezes before sight

The stillness of silence in woods growing dark

The attention paid as this poem is born

Inspiration woven in words

Expiration sets it sail into the world

Hello,

I am on this poetry journey with my little sister and best friend. We are pulling glyphs, images constructed from the letters of words, as inspiration. I spent a large chunk of this year transcribing years of poems from my journals to a Google doc. One more step in honoring the love of poetry in me. As this challenge too will be.

May the words find their merry way to you

Create
Creativity
A human inheritance
A treasure passed
In DNA
And
Direct from gnarled hands

You need not earn approval
or
Brace always for assault

Your source is fathoms deep
In aquifers of inspiration
Gathered and waiting

For your coming

For your courage
To name your longing

For your resolve
To pick up a pen
To release your stifled song

You are rooted in lush soil
Meant to grow exquisite dreams

Draw from the earth
Grow towards your star

Knowing always
Favor is already granted
Supported and fortified
By the love and legacy
of all
That came before you

Allow
You have permission to exist
In muchness
In complexity

You are invited to wholeness
In contradiction
In metamorphosis

You are cherished utterly
In mayhem
In convergence

You are allowed
To feel all you feel

You are allowed
To be all you
You are capable of being

Embody
Welcome to these bones
The frame of your home
Notice the curve of the walls
The cathedral of your chest
The acoustics a perfect match
To your heart beat

HEAR your lungs
Ceaselessly stoking
The kilns of your cells
FEEL  your softness
Secure and wrap you safely
TASTE your tears and sweat
That set free any bitterness
SMELL your scent
The chemistry only you carry
SEE your unique design
A blend only you can be

Please stay here
Tend and embody
This ecology

Grow

Dearest,
Your have one charge in this life, GROW

Grow like fire
Sometimes tame and sustained
Other times voraciously clearing the land
Always emanating light and seeking fuel

Grow like water
Sometimes permeating and nourishing
Other times flooding and terrain reshaping
Always gathering to yourself molecule by molecule

Grow like air
Sometimes playful and inquiring
Other times twisting and carrying away
Always transforming and ineffable

Grow like earth
Sometimes steady and compressing
Others shaking and remaking
Always a story layered on stories

Spirit
A history heavy burden
For the act of breathing

Religion drew lines in the invisible
Filled with prescriptions
Too harsh to swallow

Faith made it good and evils spoils
Each life choice the movement
Of a chess piece

I set down the weight
Of centuries dyed red
with conflict of definition

Find my relief
In giving it no name

Only description

The movement of being

Current

The waveform
That moves through
All the elements
That sculpt me

The slipstream of animation
Infusing
Surrounding
Carrying