So far, I had spent 2009 in a
stupor of fear and weariness,
mixed with a few bouts of hope and mania.
I was driving down a street that
stretches for a few miles underneath a canopy of
live oak limbs.
Even in the winter, they are
green and humid, shelter to a
hundred other species,
stronger than everything, stronger than the
march of time.
Intermittent patches of cold sunlight
visited the asphalt.
I was worrying.
Racked with fear that I am not good enough,
that I am too old,
or too embattled to ever be joyous,
or the kind of woman
anyone would want to have around.
And then out of nowhere
it all shut off, and
I looked ahead of me
at the soldiering trees
bent over this small vein
of human traffic -
twisting and swaying,
quietly living on nothing but
sun and dirt and rain,
and for a brief moment
I felt powerful and free,
like a wild element or force of nature,
the same as the trees -
sun and dirt and rain;
simple, gifted, and aware
that there is nothing to fear.
That everywhere around me
is everything I will ever need
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It's like what Mick Jagger said. In that song. About getting what you need. Except you said it better.
ReplyDeleteI would love to be as free as a tree, as wild as the dirt, as powerful as the rain, as simple, gifted and fearless as the sun.
Hello, Poe.
Ooooh, Scott, I really like the way you rearranged some of the words in my poem!! Lovely indeed. You are such a brilliant writer, and I am thankful for your kind words.
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