Beating Hearts

Today is the last day of April, the end of my poem a day. I missed a couple, and a few times I shared poems that weren't mine, but I did it, anyway. A poem a day for the month of... April. Hm, how come they didn't make May poetry month?

Anyway, I got a little bit of sun today, and celebrated the end of Journalism and Creative Writing by walking down to Starbucks with my writer friend and window shopping in expensive clothes stores. It's so nice to have a break, and I think my friend knew I needed one after a rough morning.

I woke up to a lot of sudden huge thoughts that I hadn't really confronted yet, and spent the half hour of "getting ready" time trying to write my thoughts into words. I was a minute late to my final Journalism class in which we discussed big issues in the world and "how to solve them," but I needed to take the time to write this morning. Sometimes it's like my thoughts don't really exist until I put them onto paper. Or at least onto a computer screen in most cases.

This poem is actually a second (or third? Maybe fourth?) draft of a poem that I wrote yesterday after checking out our school's Creative Media Major final projects and then laying in the grass soaking up as much sunshine as I could. Here it is: the last poem of April. 


Beating Hearts

Beauty is the beating of my heart,
the flutter of butterfly-wing air
as I breathe in
and breathe out
and close my eyes to feel the white film
dance across the skin of my face
as I imagine the sky
and feel the grass tickle the back of my neck.

All around me students curl their old projects
into folders and boxes
and I remember the creative media displayed
and the themes that sung throughout.
In these projects,
beauty is self-loathing,
depression,
hatred,
fear of failure-
and none of us want to admit
that we are facing darkness,

yet from that darkness we make art

and the art
we can share.

But Beauty is far from self
because self is broken and beat
and beauty is me
alive
in Him. 

Beauty is the beating of my heart
as it beats His praise.
Beauty is the song on my lips
that I sometimes cannot sing.
Beauty is the light of His sun
warming the insides
of my self.

The Mountain- Elizabeth Bishop

So for whatever reason I just spent half an hour planning out a bucket list. Unfortunately I only have nine things on my list so far. See, when there's something I want to do I find a way to do it as soon as possible. And I don't want to have a bucket list full of impossible things that I don't actually plan on doing. But, I do have a sort of beginning list now, so maybe it'll be a good reminder of things I should do?

While browsing Pinterest for Bucket List ideas, however, I was surprised at how many of the things I had already done. I don't mean to sound like I'm bragging. I've just had such an incredible, blessed life. I ought to make a list of Bucket List Worthy Things I've Already Gotten to Do

Anyway, poems aren't working out so well today. That poetry muse seems to have abandoned me, and the novel muse hasn't come back. I feel abandoned by my words.

So here is a poem by someone who is not me:
 The Mountain by Elizabeth Bishop

At evening, something behind me.
I start for a second, I blench,
or staggeringly halt and burn.
I do not know my age.

In the morning it is different.
An open book confronts me,
too close to read in comfort.
Tell me how old I am.

And then the valleys stuff
inpenetrable mists
like cotton in my ears.
I do not know my age.

I do not mean to complain.
They say it is my fault.
Nobody tells me anything.
Tell me how old I am.

The deepest demarcation
can slowly spread and sink
like any blurred tattoo.
I do not know my age.

Shadows fall down; lights climb.
Clambering lights, oh children!
you never stay long enough.
Tell me how old I am.

Stone wings have sifted here
with feathers hardening feathers.
The claws are lost somewhere.
I do not know my age.

I am growing deaf. Bird-calls
dribble and the waterfalls
go unwiped. What is my age?
Tell me how old I am.

Let the moon go hang,
the stars go fly their kites.
I want to know my age.
Tell me how old I am.

Ungraciously- Matsuo Basho

I bragged about getting to go somewhere after church and garden and eat a non-cafeteria meal with a real family. Today allergies are making me question that choice. I really hate cats.

I finished my first final period and we stumbled through what felt like a painful presentation, but hey, maybe I learned something from having to share my final grade with a group. I still would rather work alone, hands down, no questions asked, but I guess I survived the group projects anyway.

After that and work and some more packing I tried to study for my Japanese final tomorrow. I'm pretty sure the study sheet really does just have mistakes in four of the questions. I know that isn't one of the sentence structures we learned about. I sat on the floor for a while sniffling and blowing my already Rudolf-status nose and trying to make everything make sense, but eventually gave up and started watching a documentary about Studio Ghibli in Japanese with English subtitles, so that it would count as studying...

Now it's only 9:30, but I'm thinking of taking a benedril and letting my body fall asleep. I did get miserably sick last finals week, so maybe it would be good to be extra precautious and make sure this allergy doesn't turn into anything else. Of course, to do that I have to reopen that suitcase I packed and zipped earlier today because brilliant me packed away the benedril. I thought I had done such a good job of making sure I had all the meds I would need in a different container. I guess I was just planning on stealing my sister's.

Anyway, before I sleep here's a blog post, and a poem not written by me because today I am sick and tired and have a complete lack of energy and inspiration. So here's a poem from a real poet:

Ungraciously

Ungraciously, under
a great soldier's empty helmet,
a cricket sings

Fragil Stems

Today after church a family invited me over for lunch and I got to sit outside because the weather is back up to fifty. I helped the woman work in the garden and I made faces at the cats who wanted to play with me even though I kept explaining to them that I am allergic and can't pet their soft-looking fur.

I've never really experienced spring, and I'd say that if this lack of sun and miserable half-hearted rain is Spring I could certainly do without it.  Still, watching those little plants try to poke through the surface was beautiful and exciting. There's something so freeing about working so close to the dirt.

Today was a really good day, refreshing, peaceful. I got to get off campus and forget about packing and schoolwork and finals and everything else in my life. It's been hard watching the people around me get so stressed. So many of my friends are facing huge choices and asking me for advice I can't give, and others just seem to be in various stages of falling apart. I think that's one thing I've learned from this first year of college. We're all falling apart, it's just a matter of how much and how noticeable.

Thank goodness for that One who can glue us back together, or just work on us through winter to make us completely new again come Spring. I just have to take a deep breath and believe that I can be some kind of beautiful flower.

Fragile Stems

We are fragile stems-
leftover from winter-

trying to grow. 

The wind blows,
rain forces us to bend,
the whole world
wants us to
fail.

One broken blade of grass
can't help another stand,
and yet I curve
toward you,
desperate to help
though
I can only watch you break.

We teeter here
in the blowing wind,
the lingering mud,
hoping
that we too
can be made new. 

Doesn't Work

And I missed a third day...
I was so excited to write something and I just don't know what happened. I think sometimes life is just too hard. Blog posts get moved out of priority positions.

Yesterday was my last day of normal classes. I made it through this semester somehow. After class and work I went to our school's "Spring Meltdown" festival, even though I still have yet to see the sun other than those two beautiful days way back where. The festival was held in the gym instead of the lawn outside because it was too cold.

I got cool fake tattoos but everyone knows me too well and I couldn't trick anyone into believing they were real. I also went to the Christian Club's end of the year party and ate spaghetti and talked to people while the majority of the group challenged each other over Smash.

Today has been Skype calls and failed attempts at packing while keeping my sanity intact.

My brain
doesn't
even work.
Pieces all over.
I
try to hold
on
but

everything is chaos
and the clothes
on the floor
just don't fit.

I'm leaving again.
Again.
Again.
Don't even count the times
and my life is
all over.
doesn't even work. 

Weasels and Bagels

I didn't post a poem yesterday! Oh no! I am a terrible person. What can I say, pre-finals week, end of my first year of college, no sun, and beginning of packing. There's a lot going on. I did, however, start to write a poem today and I guess something distracted me and I didn't finish so here's what I started writing. I know it's no good, but like I said, pre-finals week. 


Today I'll dive straight into a poem.

I am amazed at how the world can fall
at how my heart so quickly finds a wall
and all the peace I felt is washed away
I try to take life day by day by day


Now it's midnight and I should really be sleeping because I like sleep and it's very important to me and I stayed up past midnight last night too. But here's a poem:

There once lived a little lease weasel
who lived in a little brown box.
The weasel enjoyed eating bagel
and loved to curl up inside socks.

One day as the weasel was eating
he realized he needed some jam.
The taste of a bagel is fleeting
but lasts so much shorter than ham.

So weasel went out for adventure
to find some good jam for his bread.
He found a strawberry picture
and jumped till the roof hit his head.

The weasel danced up to his human
and pointed to strawberry jam
to make his bagel less bland
and therefore his day much more glam.

This is dedicated to my boyfriend and my failed communication at the end of our Skype date today. Still, even if it's just weasels and bagels, I'm so thankful for this guy who can make me smile so much even after such a long day.

I also got to Skype a great friend from Colorado and talk for an hour and a half, which was awesome and so refreshing to talk to her again. All this technology is a beautiful thing.

Lesson 1- Julie Alger

So I wrote a couple of poems to God this morning, but unfortunately have nothing to share with the blogging world tonight.

It gets worse, too. I don't even have anything to say about my day. I went to class and work and class and it drizzled every time I stepped outside and I never saw the sun. We got to make Matcha, Japanese powdered green tea, in Japanese class today, but that was the most extraordinary thing that happened.

It seems like a good day to share this poem called Lesson 1 by Julie Alger:

Lesson 1

At least I've learned this much:
Life doesn't have to be
all poetry and roses. Life
can be bus rides, gritty sidewalks,
electric bills, dishwashing,
chapped lips, dull stubby pencils
with the erasers chewed off,
cheap radios played too loud,
the rank smell of stale coffee
yet still glow
with the inner fire of an opal,
still taste like honey.