Growing And Healing Through Poetry

Photo by Hannah Olinger on Unsplash

I began writing again a few years after my son died. I'd lost the ability to string words together — so I started with poems. I'd never lost my words before, even though I'd been writing since an early age. Writing had been a way of surviving whatever life had delivered.

As a collective, this time in history is asking us to hold many things—whether it be sickness war, natural disasters, crime, addiction, or cancel culture—we can't do it alone. And sometimes, the road we follow through our suffering is found in other people's words who can help us bear the reality we're living.

Make Me A Poet

Make me a poet

So I might find my way to the countryside

In the presence of an ash blonde daughter’s pigtails whose eyes take me back to the summer sky where I drove a tractor round and round the field, cutting grass.

Make me a poet

So I would not miss the eye twinkle connected to the smiled, curved lips

As my 7 month old giggles in anticipation of another round of peek a boo.

Make me a poet

So a day of bad physical pain can be overthrown by the wonder and mystery all around me,

Like the pair of golden eagles landing in a nearby tree

And the meadow flowers filling my visual pockets, empty from living in concrete known as the city.

Make me a poet

So I may live.

Your turn. Write a poem with the same stanza I've used: Make me a poet...So...