Thursday, July 22, 2010

as a writer

another foray into understanding what happens when I write

words reach toward the light

space and time open themselves enough for me to act,
to sit down with pen in hand and writing pad before me,
I don’t know what I’ll write,
it’s not like a present has been delivered
and I just have to open it,
I’m often not even sure I’m pregnant with possibility,
I just have to labor until I know
if the pressure is true, or false,

I feel an unease, an itch that needs scratching,
a sense that something beyond tugs at my attention,
something beyond my day-to-day routine and challenge,
something that needs to be noticed,
and coaxed or pulled out of the burgeoning darkness into the light,

I want to exist as fire,
to live the days as the night’s power haunts me,

I want to recognize and assert affirmation
when the lesser seems louder,
when doubt whispers in the night to my fear,

in our lives we are not just following a script,
unless we choose to deny our birthright,
instead we can choose to serve the muse who speaks through us,
we can serve the divine who gives us a hint of what can be,
and with our lives we stumble toward that light as best we can,

as I writer I seek to follow what whispers true to me,
and to find the words that call order into being
above the background chaos within which we can lose ourselves.

by Henry Walker
July 19, ’10

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