I come to poetry…
Asking to be relieved of the pain inside, the unspoken.
Asking to be met in the hollows of my heart, in my seeing and feeling of the world.
Asking for beauty and imagination, for care and caring, for brute truth and grace.
Asking to be let in from the cold, to be filled and fed.
To know someone understands, feels and cares enough to craft through long hours a made thing, a thing of beauty and realness.
I come to poetry with my anger, hurt, fear and disbelief, with my longing to praise and be grateful, with my huddling in dark corners.
I come as I am—raw, open, unhealed, wild.
And I am received.
I come to poetry to shut out the noise of the blistering world, the rage at TVs, injustice, the incessant internet.
I come with my curiosity, my old blame, my envy.
With my eyes aflame, my taste for the Infinite, my knowledge of other worlds, my vast love for the Beloved.
I come with my ache and wounds, unfilled longings, my poverty and richness, my rivers of frustration, my awe.
I come shorn and shucked, humbled and wanting, hungry, empty of hand.
And poetry fills me with companionship, artfulness, remembering, my senses on fire.
Poetry brings me home to what I know is real.
Poetry relieves the lies shoved at us daily, the battering advertisements, polluted air and water, children in rags, the earth trembling open, furious people wielding guns, the hatred and judgment in me, the shadow I see and the shadow I cannot see.
I come with my inadequacy and awkwardness, my mockers and uprooters.
I come as I am, again and again, dirt under my nails and in the cracks of my feet.
Lonely, left out, confused. I come helpless and bereft when human relations leave me baffled and bruised.
I come into the house of poetry. I let myself into my own room and wander the rooms of others and find my tribe. I come to poetry and find pieces of the map, bits of treasure, a slow road in a good place.
I find my sanity, wholeness, rightness and righteousness, my doubt erased, my magnificence, the magnificence of others and our world.
I find space to breathe, room to rest, inspiration, encouragement, revelation.
I come to poetry to live in the contradictions, the fullness, the catastrophe, the blessings,
and to sing them all.
What is you come to poetry and art for? What is it you find there?
If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy Entering the Word Temple of Poetry and Create an Ode.
If you are in the Nevada City area, you might want to sign up for my Riding the Dragon Poetry Workshop and get some poetic magic in your own life.
