This is a true story. I don't know how it goes for you but for me everything important in my life has happened to me. I have no clue about actually deciding and then being the captain of my fate. Where I live and what I do, who I married and who came after, how I finished my degree, how this blogging happened, all of it turns on little things that mushroomed and those little things weren't what I chose. They happened. The things I tried to do on my own initiative all blew up in my face when I was very young. What I trust it is, my life has been God led. That started when I was nineteen really and the first part nearly killed me. Then it got really scary. Then it started to straighten out. Then there was a huge reckoning. Then the path that led here began. Now I am old :)
My Whole Life
My whole life has turned
On doors like these, doors
At this moment open, then
Closed forever more.
Doors I enter once
And after the whole world's changed.
And here's me knowing
That if I missed them,
My life would break, I would die.
And here's me so sure
I can't have done it
Without you or him or pluck.
December 29, 2008 3:42 PM
*********************************
Well, here's the back story and even though I wrote the poem, I have no idea what the front story is. It might be something that happened to me in some other life. It didn't happen in this one. I don't even remember now where it was I wrote this one. This was the period of my layoff and I was sitting at home rather than at work having the time of my life chasing blogs and all that. One of the things I like about poetry, I don't have to only write my current life, not any more. I can make this shit up.
The Back Story
When I stood in defiance
And they cut me down
Then strung me high up,
Stripped, exposed, they laughed at me.
Those who passed stared or
Looked away from me
But not one said anything.
That’s when she got called, taunted,
Or else comforted
By idiots who
Couldn’t say but stupid stuff.
But God help me, please!
I would. I’d do it again!
December 29, 2008 4:17 PM
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You are not old, you are seasoned.
ReplyDeleteI love this poem in it's beautiful simplicity.I also love doors. I have photographed many doorways and doors.
Christopher, you know the old saying about doors -- when one closes, another opens. It may be hackneyed, but I think it's true. The thing we have to come to understand, which I think you have, is that we don't open or close the doors. They are there, we just have to go through them. I often think about how one small, seemingly insignificant occurrence can have life-changing consequences. What if I had taken that other road - the one more or less traveled?
ReplyDeleteYour experiences could be a book, poetry or other. Have you considered it? The Tao of Christopher? ;-)
WOW! those doors...
ReplyDeletesufis say when you are on the right path everything that comes to you is what you really need...
in a way, you yourself have summoned them...
unfortunately i'm in a hurry... i should go out...
i will come again to read and enjoy...
"Back Story" is good, very good. I like the surprise of the 'she' into the mix, which expanded the story and made me want to know more than the poem told.
ReplyDeleteI like a good mystery!
'One of the things I like about poetry, I don't have to only write my current life, not any more. I can make this shit up.'
ReplyDeleteYes!
I loved your crane poem over at mine, thanks!
Cherie, It's all point of view, but there are other pieces, like how after a certain age, you let your body go and have hell to pay trying to get it back. My mom died in a bed she couldn't get out of because she had lost all her muscles, because it hurt too much to exercise. There's more but that is a strong signal, how the body rusts itself shut. Using the term rust is not exactly wrong because it is oxidation that causes breakage from the aging process, why we supplement with all those anti-oxidants. So use the word seasoned carefully, my dear. I love you for it. :)
ReplyDeleteKaren, I have considered a book. I even wrote one years ago to finish my degree. It is not in the works as of now. I have over 600 poems since last August.
HB, doors come along whether you are on the right path or not. Measuring spiritual success is not easy because the criteria are singular to the individual life, not easily known and perhaps quite odd by conventional standards.
Crow, as I think about it I ran a tangent off a poem of a lynching written by Julie Buffaloe-Yoder. You can catch her blog in my list of sites, The Buffalow Pen.
Lucy, thank you. The crane poem on your site is a true life experience. I went in for coffee on the half morning shift just freaking out at how bad this job was, standing in a really bad spot, highly dangerous, in order to swing a chalk as the blows neared the end, so I could record the correct number of blows per inch. That put me right next to the steam hammer. If anything came apart I would have been torn apart by an explosion of steel. I was so cold and wet I hurt, and getting flash burn from welding too...I wasn't getting paid near enough.
ReplyDeletereminded me of the hanging man in the tarot arcana...... crucifix
ReplyDeleteYes, Ghost, of course it does. I consciously have images like that float around, and as I replied to Crow, the lynching image was there too. Thanks for the cross. A little to drunken for my crucifixion though.
ReplyDeleteFabulous! X:-)
ReplyDeletethe piece was actually called "wine crucifix".... i thought it striking
ReplyDeletenolly, Thanks for saying so.
ReplyDeleteGD, Oh yes, the wine crucifix is striking. I just mean I have already been crucified by wine. That is too drunken for me.
as long as we are walking and going on, we are on the right path...
ReplyDelete