epiphany

I am, most of the time, going through life by rote. There is a certain pattern; I get up, put on the coffee, let the dog out, fill his water bowl and food dish, check my email and Facebook, awake my hubs and then sit down with a cup of coffee, write and work on my poetry. My day will follow a familiar pattern throughout until night, then morning and... repeat. By most standards that isn't anything to complain about. I am, mostly, where I want to be. There are still some tweaks that need to be made but overall, umm, yeah, I am content.

Occasionally, I even try to accept and value what and who I am. I am an introvert. I think that has been the stronger pull all my life but as I age it is consuming all other tendencies. I really have to work at the social thing. If I didn't I'd be a hermit just going out long enough to forage. That being said, I haven't truly understood how that rules my life and relationships. Why it has taken me so long is a mystery but this morning's epiphany (I looked that word up to make sure I was using it the way I meant:  A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization). This realization has helped me not feel so confused and guilty about some of my choices with friendships.

I can't handle more than one or two really deep, close friendships. People wear me out. I don't want to be involved in their lives except superficially most of the time. I see the damage that has done to my fellowship in church. People are not very forgiving when you want less relationship. I no longer desire to be in church as much as I use to. I have changed in ways I don't really like or completely understand but this is who I am right now and I have to live here for awhile. At least until God moves me if I need to be somewhere else.

It isn't that I just like to be alone, it is that I need time alone. Time to think, to read, to be silent, to write... Therein lies the epiphany. I always thought it was a selfish choice but now I understand it is what I am. I wish that made all the difference but I'm still learning how to be this person, how to nurture her without spoiling her, how to value her without changing her and how to do and be an introvert that will glorify God with so much inactivity and solitude which seems to me to be anti-thesis for what a Christian is suppose to be. Still, I'm working on it.

 

Cycles of Life

I'm here again, Dad, 
With flowers and stories
About what’s been going on
Since you’ve been gone.
Same old, same old…
School, work,
Braces for Billy, Julie into dance,
Aunt Millie, she's in the nursing home,
Ellen had a little girl.
Oh, Stan died, heart attack.
But maybe you knew that already?
Are you here, Dad?
Is there more than this
Endless cycle of
Life and death… ?

 

Everyone...

Writer's Digest Prompt 25  everyone...

Everyone has a story

tales of glory
or defeat.

Tales of romance

at first glance
or a fickle cheat.

Some have to tell

every tiny detail
Till you want to scream.

Others prate

about their mate
faces abeam.

Everyone has a history

Blistery or mystery
they love to tell.

 

But a bore
I abhor
and quickly say farewell.

Lesson on Love

Writers Digest PAD 23

You say you’ll love me unconditionally?
I already have a dog.
That you’ll wrap your love around me?
Fleece blanket.
That you’ll give me the sun and moon?
Where would I store them?
That you can’t live without me?
You have till now and will.
Your face falls, smile fails, a tear gleams in your eye,
I’ve hurt you – I’m sorry, but it just isn’t wise… for me.
I watch you walking slump shouldered to the car
a pretty girl passes and smiles
your head whips round and you say, Helllooo there…
Class dismissed.

 

Forward into Life

A Quote Acrostic: For PAD 19 Writers Digest: using the word/concept burn
 

Better to burn a candle at both ends than
to never burn a candle at all. Better to
burn your bridges and do with
out what’s left behind
than to endure
rust and corrosion that reams
out your heart and soul.

“Better to burn out than to rust out.” Neil Young

Quinzaine

The English word quinzaine comes from the French word qunize, meaning fifteen. A quinzaine is an unrhymed verse of fifteen syllables.
These syllables are usually distributed among three lines:  seven syllables in the first line, five in the second line, and three in the third line (7/5/3). The first line makes a statement. The next two lines ask a question relating to that statement.

Reality bites oft times.

But what else is there?
Bubble baths?

 

Orange cat crouching on the post,

Are your thoughts benign?
Or deadly?
 

Sonnet - This is Love?

   
Poets love to write of love. What is love?                  

Wild nights, wild nights, ecstasy and desire              
Mouths that cling, lean bodies of heat, afire      
With animal lust. Hormones just won’t quit.  
Poets love to rave of love. What is love?                 
Beer and rock music, June nights! Youth’s ardor   
Riding inferno’s fires, higher, higher                           
Till firestorms of desire are spent.  Unlit.               
This is love? This is all? Oh, heart bereft,                                 
Oh, rash thought. Any fool can fall in sex.                                               
It is more, much more than this. Love’s what’s left           
Of glowing coals, smoldering in each breast,                        
Contented as a cat’s purr.  Does this vex?
Think, then, how things that touch your soul are best.  
 

 

No Tempting Horizons

It occurred to me this morning, as I thought about all the violence, discontent, boredom and confusion of present day, to wonder why. How did we - America, I meant, then realized it isn't just "us" but everyone, everywhere - get to this state of restlessness tinged with anger?  Why, with all the technology and advancements in many areas of life should there be an infectious virus of disgruntlement spreading across our world?   There have always been scary winds whispering destruction but lately they brazenly shout and taunt emboldened by a people who no longer look beyond themselves. Ah, I thought. Could a kernel of the answer lie in those words ‘beyond themselves’? 

What things beyond ourselves have we lost?  One thing is exploration.  There was a time when whole continents were undiscovered, when America was only thirteen colonies and who knew what treasures and mysteries might await just over those mountains or across that ocean? We had men and women who were adventurous, curious and brave. Now, people are bored and jaded and fearful trading quests for small, trivial amusements.  There used to be men and women who looked at the stars and felt a draw to explore and discover, who wondered at the depth and scope of the seas and the beauty and benefit of going into their watery wonderland.  No more. No longer do we dream of unknown worlds, nor do we care to.

Men and women from different parts of the globe worked side by side against staggering obstacles to build this land.  That there was inequality and white arrogance there is no doubt, but we were making strides, slowly to be sure, but strides.  Now, there is a new tolerance and diversity sound bite on the air. But, you know something? It is all scarves, mirrors and distraction.  I believe it started with good intentions but quickly morphed into “I’ll be tolerant as long as you are just like me” and “let’s include different races and nationalities so we look like we are loving us some diverse”.  True tolerance allows people to have their own beliefs, their own culture, their own language and their own pride. If we were diverse we wouldn’t even notice. Everyone would be accepted for who they are not what they are.  We are too selfish, too small in character and have eyes that only look inward to my needs, my wants, my RIGHTS.

Perhaps the worse narcissism of our day though is that we no longer have anything or anyone bigger than ourselves to admire, to look to. We have deserted God, having first belittled, caricatured as a burlesque buffoon and finally denied completely.  Man has become the all-powerful and the Earth our subject to save.  It is a bit ironic to me that we have becomes gods to Earth and saviors, sacrificing for her salvation. We are blind children thinking we see the light, thinking we are the light. Our new religion is called Politics and we bow down to ease and security. We are no longer men and women but sheep, sheep without a loving shepherd and we have no one to blame but our weak, silly, visionless selves.

 

Miner’s Wife

 ...has been accepted and published in Bluestone Review. Pretty sweet.

 

She watches from the kitchen

door ajar and robe clutched tight
his kiss still warm on her lips.
She watches till his fading
form recedes into the dark
headlamp dimming in the mist.

Up ahead muted voices

drift back, football highlights mulled
from last night’s high school victory.
“Ho, wait up,” he calls to them,
they pause, then they are three.

Three light-beams along the road

three lunch buckets at their sides
and in three houses, three wives
whisper a prayer, “Keep him safe.”

 

Winter Solace

You are the season of introspection

Shut-up, closed in, bundled in layers
Steamy cup of caffeinated something
to keep hibernation at bay.

Grey, shaded, muted, solemn

Drained, sapped, bled of blush and bloom.
I stand looking inward through the glass pane
That fixes the napping world a centimeter away.

Not to say you’re bad or hateful or unkind

You have worth in my eyes
And a kind of longing when you’re gone
A needed retreat from this world of ravel and fray.

You are the season I ask of myself

The existential questions:
Who am I? What’s my purpose?
Is this all? What is real? ...and I pray.

I pity the lands who only know

Sun and temperate climes
Never know a warming fire or
Solitude of quiet- a spiritual abbé.
                                                                              4/11/13

 

What If

What if the world just happened?
What if the old myths are not true?
No Eden. No Adam. No Fall.
No Incarnation. No Sin Bearer. No Forgiveness.
No Heaven and no Hell?

Maybe the stories are hard to hear,
Particularly to modern ears,
But what if in the stories,
The Truth, is true?
What would you do?

I can’t imagine this universe just happened.
The myths must have a source.
I’m not scared of symbolism
Or literalism.
I’ve seen hell and hope for Heaven.
                         Debi Swim 4/10/13

Collage by Diane Landy of lines from some of my poetry

Time

I can’t help wondering just where time gets to. Seems like he was right here at hand and the next thing I know he’s stolen off.  He is just the slipperiest thing since wet soap. My friends and I talk about how it flies by often.  I use to laugh at my grandmother and her friends for talking about how swiftly time passes. I thought they were barmy. Why, I thought school term would never be over, that summer break would never come. I waited a hundred years to turn sixteen and drive a car. For each milestone time seemed to drag his feet like they were encased in concrete.  When, exactly, did physics do a flip flop and shift into hyper-drive?

I suspect my grandchildren shake their heads and laugh at goofy granny and her crazy hang-up about time. But, like previous generations, we oldsters have the last laugh cause we know the reality or maybe I should say, the relativity of time. They’ll learn and the cycle will go on. Such is life. And it’s all good.