40.0
Red Shoes and Train Tracks
Introduction
A couple of years ago I looked in the mirror and realized I didn't know the person staring back at me. I had stumbled into a job 10 years earlier that I didn't really want, and couldn't seem to find a way out of. As I looked at myself, I realized I had stopped doing those things that used to make me happy, like writing.
So, in an effort to rediscover myself and kickstart my writing, I started a blog where I wrote a poem a day for a year. I added friends as followers as a way to make myself accountable.
My rules were simple. If I did miss, I allowed myself no more than 3 days in a row, and I had to make up those posts. After only a couple of times of having to write several poems in one day, I resolved to just suck it up and write every day, one poem, not matter how ugly it turned out or how long it took me.
As the year evolved something amazing and unexpected happened. I found that having to write a poem every day made me pay attention. I became awake, looking throughout the day for material for my poem. Some days, many days in fact, I just settled for a haiku or a cinquain.
However, at the end of the year not only did I have 365 poems, but I also felt more alive than I had felt in a very long time. And happy. And at the end of that year, only two days after the blog ended, I walked out of that job feeling like a bird who had just been set free.
And the poems. While many of the poems will stay on the blog, and never get reworked, some of them will go on to live other lives.
I thought I would share some of my favorites from that year here.
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Unbreakable
Weaving through little game paths, between tress,
over roots and streams, switchbacking up
the side of the rocky hillside, we raced to the top
where we would let our bikes fall and run
to the flat boulder, elbowing each other
out of the way as we reached for the big ropey vine.
The winner, grabbing the grapevine at a run,
leapt off the rock and and into the air,
swinging out over the deep gorge,
kicking out hard against the tops of the tall trees
below to bounce back to safety on top of the big boulder.
I grasped the vine firmly in my hands and jumped.
swinging through space, I watched as the trees
on the other side rapidly approached, and
taking aim at a particularly bouncy looking
tree top with my toes, I stretched out to tap it-
but instead started spinning wildly, high over the gorge.
Circling slower and slower, I caught glimpses
Of my friends, standing safely on the boulder.
My hands began to sweat and I started to slide
down the grapevine, little by little, inch by inch.
I stole a look at the undergrowth below.
There was nothing left now but to fall.
Cozy Cacophony
Rain softly slapping the wooden deck outside
I pull my chair close to the open door and
Breathe in the heady scent of the night air
Heavy with moisture and coolness
Lulled listless by the steady syncopation
Of the drip drop dripping water on wood on
Grass on trees on rocks on roofs and th
Tick trickling down drainpipes and plunk dunking
Into ponds and echo thunking off empty flower pots
Sinking slowly into dirt and slinking swiftly
Into streams and creeks made mad with
Water water everywhere and bursting banks
Sloshing sloppy with way too much too much
I sigh warm and dry in my chair and listen.
