Poetical Musings

Guilt came to me one certain day, wearing the mask of Religion. I welcomed her in with a smile. We made merry but as she left, she stabbed me in the back. My life spilled, my soul slipping away. Twice yearly she came to me, policing my progress, enforcing her rules. Each time, my face paled, my heart all a flutter within me. More each year I pleased her and her visits became grand. Out went the carpet, my ease no where to be found. Leaving, she rent my soul. I'd smiled, looked her deep in the eyes and felt the warmth of her approval.
Yet there was this weakening, and then there came a rage. I called her out. I made her pay. And finally I saw her...unmasked. I laughed in her face, "Oh, it's you! What a player you are! You talked me out of my soul and nearly out of my mind! I'd sooner die than give one more moment to you! I will find a way to honor my Creator...and neither you nor your alter-ego will have anything to do with it."
This, from an otherwise empty journal, written last summer, 2012.

Hawaii and Here

Room to roam,
Sky to soar,
Land without fences,
Rivers without dams,
So everything contained in me,
Has someplace else to be.

Hawaii is tiny. To make it even smaller, it's a grouping of teeny islands in the great blue ocean!  It held it's share of comforts and luxuries of course.  OK.  More than its share.  I love o'ahu and I'm hoping to make it back there someday, not as a tourist.  I'd like to be LOCAL. 
The breeze that used to blow through or little single wall home felt like life to me.  If ever it stopped, I felt like God died.  What happened? What's wrong?  Where'd He go?  The ocean was so many colors of blue.  It wasn't just endless horizon.  It was reef, beach, cliff, cave, tide pool and surf.  So?  Well, the land was so tiny.  We'd go driving on the north shore. My eye would roam over the pineapple fields and up to the mountains.  . . back down again and soon (too soon) end up looking at the great blue. 
There was a restlessness in me.  I felt my eye could never get its fill.  I could not see far enough.  I couldn't feel my way across the nation.  I had no confidence in the earth I was standing on.  What a great imagination I have!  To think that I really needed to know there were forty-something states of mountains, prairie, desert, and plains behind me!
Anyhow, somehow, it is true.  So here I am in Washington with season changes upon me.  Every time Summer leaves me, I am only able to let it go because Fall is a gentle beauty. But Winter? She is not beautiful.  And she wears out her welcome wherever she goes!  So here I have some words from mine own pen, written back on the warm ever-beautiful island of O'ahu:
I long to see a land,
as barren as my soul.
I'd like to see grand,
and on some distant shore.
Watch it stretch long in the morning,
See it curl up tight at night.
Smell it take in the wind and the rain and the sun,
Feel it turn its face to the light of the moon.
If I could see a land,
as barren as my soul,
begin to live again,
I would . . .
Stretch long in the morning,
curl up tight at night,
take the wind and the rain and the sun,
and by the light of the moon,
begin to live again.
So you see, I became sort of obsessed.  Here's another, (though written after the move.):
Our Spring wears mostly green,
our Summer is the quickest runner,
Our Fall tarries not at all,
and only on special occasion our Winter,
wears a great white gown of glitter.
There is another I had written just before the great storm.  But it's lost. . .written on loose leafs.  Something  like living like the seasons. . .tidying up for spring, hunkering down for winter, and in the fall painting myself with color.  A bunch of romanticism!
Anyhow, I'm over it, and the weather is getting bad!  The beauty of this fall will win me over as it always does. . . and Winter will make me dream of the glorious Spring when I can watch with wonder as the land begins to live again.

guilt

There are some things I can never recover.  Foremost, the life of a schoolmate of mine, the friend of many,  a beloved daughter.  Also my innocence, my tender adolescent years, my free feeling college years.   Guilt took me pinch by pinch until I was left with no right to BE.  It wasn't until there was nothing left, 'cept life itself, that I even perceived this theft.

Guilt had done a number on me!  I welcomed him under many guises.  But when I had nothing left . . . and he still wanted more. . . that is when I knew.  I shut the door in his face, rested safely behind it and tried to catch my breath.  How could I have been so blind? (I do have a few ideas!) but you're not going to like them!  devotion, discipline, sacrificial love, the cause of Christ, a mother's  love, moral perfection, the desire to please.  Doesn't that make you mad?  Guilt wore many masks.  In fact, I think guilt and shame were hiding behind many thing in my life.  So when he asked for it all, the very last of me, I saw him for what he was:  an evil force of darkness and despair. I was left in a room of darkness. Then the LIGHT came on and I saw Guilt.   Just guilt . . . so I told him where to go!

There came a time,
    Guilt was at my door,
Demanding more,
    than I ever paid before,
My hands were empty,
   my soul bereft,
Store rooms barren,
   no crumb was left,
I stood my ground,
   made bold and said,
You'll take nothing more,
   until I 'm dead,
And when I die,
    I'll be at Christ's side,
You'll not be there,
   nor Grief, nor Shame,
So today I dare,
   to send you back from where you came.

I made this poem on a long walk.  A long walk that made so many things so clear that day.  It just came out, rhymes and all, as I tramped up the Hawaiian mmountainside behind my home.  And when I finished it, I realized for the first time: I'd been had!  I stamped my foot and said out loud "Damn you. . .  damn you to hell! I have a right to BE!!!"