From my piano bench, I can see dandelion seeds float on the wind. There they go; sledding down imaginary valleys and floating on imaginary clouds. As my fingers travel up and down the keys, I wonder. Does music float? Just like dandelions? If I push up the windows high, lift the piano cover, play Hayden’s Surprise Symphony—will the music float out the windows and into the world’s ears?
you came running
over the green fields you came running to meet me
you took my heart by surprise
you came dancing
wildflowers and windswept trees, smiling out loud
you took my hand and spun me
you came singing
echoes in the ruins of a majesty at once ancient and undying
you took my breath away
and somewhere
somewhere back in your dark, wet earth
somewhere between the cows dappling the hillside
somewhere in the laugh of the creek through Kilfree
somewhere down the winding one-lane road
Plant me near the ocean
so I can stand beside the sea.
Find a barren hillside
and take me there, if it needs a tree.
Let my branches brush the clouds
like a baby's arms that rise
to touch a father's face.
Find me a hole that only I can fill,
and capture the sky
in a star-fishing net.
It's my only limit, you know?
When I stand my full height,
unashamed to be strong,
don't top me off like other trees
that rose too high above the rest.
I started writing poetry during my English class last year. It was actually the very first English class for me, since my mom had never really been strong in that area. I was in the tenth grade, and studying mathematics at the eleventh grade, but because of my weak background in grammar, my mom had enrolled me in a ninth grade class. Even so, I was nervous that first day.
No one can be a poet just because they want to be. To write poetry, just like all the other arts, you have to be meant to--that is, God has to want you to. No one can write poetry--real poetry, mind, that's true and good and at least halfway deserving of the word "beautiful"--without God putting it in them; without Him speaking into their souls every single word. I know by experience that it is the same way with writing books. Every character, every conversation, every circumstance is inspired by God's voice.
I feel the itch.
An idea grows.
My mind alive,
my writing flows.
My pen is swift,
words chosen with care.
It is a gift
I wish I could share.
My sympathies to those
who’ve never tasted the desire
to set hand to page
and light words on fire.
August 12th, 2002