Tag: writing

The Birds

The trees aim for the birds.
A cotton song sticks in my throat,
Warming me.
What a village of busted knee caps we live in.
I have not walked anywhere for days.
Over the hillocks and bluffs the sight of men marches
Naturally,
With no bodies to slow anything down.
What is there to see but birds
Skimming skeins of skyline,
Evading the green fanged death in the trees?

Female

A blue tunnel rimmed with rainbow spangled stars
Leads to a woman in a black field harvesting high heels.
She is old as winter,
Her hair violet,
Her eyes ultramarine stars flashing.
She is no one’s neighbor,
Born beneath a pile of cast stones.
Somewhere in the looming black wheat
Beneath the onyx ether
Girl children are born in red satin receiving blankets.

My Shadow’s Nation

An ocean flutters from a flagpole,
A 3×5 slate blue ocean with dolphins leaping in and out.
This is the emblem
Of the country of my shadow.
My shadow is a princess.
She warbles,
Her tax code a filing system
Of feathers.
Beneath her flag I am wet.
My vision bordered by swaths of salt.
Here in Kansas oceans are special occasions,
And many rally around her flag,
Though they cannot swim.

Ekphrastic of a Life

A nuclear image of a girl constructed from trees
Blows apart a novel, a life, clairvoyant cinematography.
She sips from a waterfall,
Collects scraps of rain in her hair.
She rebels against rebels from every state of matter that matters
(Doesn’t all matter matter? A speck of glitter can cleave an eye).
With her breath fleeing north and her pheromones slipping south,
Nothing will ever be hot again.

Chasing Accolades

All my life I have been ambitious. My ambitions have changed a few times, but I always have them. Being a wife and mother was always on my list of goals, but I have always avoided the thought that motherhood might be my only job. How we define ourselves as women has changed over the past 40 years, and now many women don’t derive enough satisfaction from their own lives. They need careers and ministries and awards and promotions to feel full, to feel satisfied.

I have given up my goals of becoming a professor and of being the worship arts leader at a church, but I still have dreams. I long to get a second chapbook published, as well as a full length book of poetry. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with dreams and ambitions. But my fulfillment and satisfaction should come from my God-ordained roles as wife and mother. I am reading a book called Girl Defined. For the most part it is written for younger women, a book I will save for my daughter. But in it the authors do pose some interesting questions that have given me much to ponder.

Why do I feel so strong a need to get published, and how will I feel if I don’t get published? If my poetry is good it is good whether anyone publishes it or not. If my poetry is bad it is bad whether anyone publishes it or not. And there have been many good poets that went unpublished and there have been many bad poets published.  Most importantly, I can enjoy writing poetry whether anyone publishes me or not.

Poetry is an act of  communication, so it is natural to want readers. But I have my blog for that, and I value each and every visitor and comment.

But underneath a healthy desire for communication with other people, is a culturally instilled sense of inferiority. In our culture it is not enough to be a wife and mother. Rather than being purely motivated to share my art as an act of sharing beauty with the world, I am also motivated by competitiveness, and a deep-seated need for worldly approval. In someone who is not a Christian, such an attitude can lead to messed up priorities and low self esteem. Ditto for Christians, but it is also completely unacceptable. Our highest calling (with the exception of childless women or women gifted with singleness) is as wives and mothers. Being a wife is enough. Being a mother is enough.

It is fine for women to have ambitions. It is okay to have hopes and dreams outside family life. But family life should always come first, and any ambitions should be held up to careful scrutiny. Does this goal glorify God? Am I striving for this to share beauty or wisdom or knowledge with the world, or to exalt myself? Accolades are not bad, but should never be the goal.

Ultimately, what it comes down to is that it’s okay to have dreams for the future as long as those dreams for the future don’t arise from dissatisfaction with the present. In all things we are supposed to give thanks to God. My problem is that I am chasing satisfaction where I should not be. I should be wholly grateful for my life at home with my family. I should not let the world’s definition of success define me.