I knew her when she was a kid,
\nremember when she and her brother won
\nthe 4H Share the Fun competition
\nin McAlester,
\nher voice,
\nhis upside down guitar.
\nThey could sure put on
\na show.
\nMy three octave range
\ndidn\u2019t stand a chance.<\/p>\n
It’s the show that matters.
\nThat was my first lesson.<\/p>\n
In high school, senior year
\nsinging with a rock band turned country
\nfor 4-H,
\npretending to be Kitty Wells
\non the Grand Ole Opry stage,
\nmy friends and I went all the way to state,
\nsang in front of a crowd
\nat the Iba Arena.<\/p>\n
When we got offered a summer gig,
\nthe six of us,
\nDad put his foot down.
\nHis daughter wasn\u2019t going to be
\na country singer.<\/p>\n
I put my foot down, too.
\nI wasn\u2019t going to be a gospel singer,
\nthe path he envisioned for me.
\nOur relationship was fractious,
\nAnd I somehow found the courage
\nto choose my own path.
\nI didn\u2019t become famous,
\nbut I still make music.
\nAnd I am still learning lessons.<\/p>\n
One lesson has stayed with me,
\nLearned at the end of a show in Stillwater,
\nnot long after her original band
\ndied in a plane crash.
\nI shared
\na few words with her,
\nsaw the fatigue
\nunderstood the hard work,
\nthe dedication,
\nthe singular focus it takes
\nto be a star, still<\/p>\n
I\u2019d joke
\nor poke at a sore place in me,
\nthat every time I sold a story,
\na poem,
\na feature in a magazine,
\nshe\u2019d made it to the pages
\nor the cover,
\nfirst.<\/p>\n
But on that night,
\nI went home to my kiddos,
\nmy four-year-old son,
\nmy infant daughter,
\nand knew I\u2019d made the right choice for myself,
\nand that she had earned,
\nhad paid for, every accolade.<\/p>\n
This year, in a book of Oklahoma poetry,
\nI\u2019m proud to be included.
\nShe\u2019s there, too,
\nand we both deserve our place
\non the page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I knew her when she was a kid, remember when she and her brother won the 4H Share the Fun competition in McAlester, her voice, his upside down guitar. They could sure put on a show. My three octave range didn\u2019t stand a chance. It’s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":665,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompt-responses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/665"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62393,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62257\/revisions\/62393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}