The Force of Longing

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 136

Hosted this week by the spectacular poet Chrissa!

There was a time when I was submerged in the emptiness of my mother's regrets

unable to breathe with my own lungs nor speak with my own voice

one would think that the weight of regret could flood a soul

but instead it takes away

drop by drop until all that is left is a parched and thirsty place

yet it is there that I learned to reach out

finding my own voice

immersing myself in poetry 

thirsty for hope and hungry to be heard

for longing is a greater force than lost regrets that cannot be salvaged from the rubble

longing pushes us onward like a canoe in a river

headed to something greater

a purpose and message beyond ourselves

a voice that speaks of hope and beauty

to our daughters' daughters

we may never meet.

The Freedom of Poetry

"Take Me Up"  by Lauren Withrow

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 89

Come join us!

“I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.”  ~ Pablo Neruda

You are the true poetry that my heart harbors yet shall also set free

All the love you did not give

Is every seed that planted my lovely garden

Every sad word that slipped through your lips

Like a long kiss goodbye

Became the song I did not sing

Instead I learned to listen

Not to the melancholy of wind instruments

Nor to promises that die where they lay

But to the sound of wings in flight

the uplifting sound of freedom

was the voice of reason that carried me forward

where there was loss and flowers never planted

I carried something more

A hope that can see the horizon’s true beauty

To raise my voice high

Like a flying flag

The freedom of poetry

For you

For me

For everyone.