Faith, Health, and Other Musings
May our minds flourish with creation, and may our hands never deny its expression.
Consumed by deadlines.
Buried in unmet dreams.
Burdened by rejections
that press me farther downstream.
From beneath the water,
I greet the stones with a grin,
for it takes water in your ears,
to hear the voice within.
The Whisperer makes to speak,
and tells the wearied me,
that the things for which I labor
hold not my identity.
The essence, the potentialities,
the soul, and the heart,
your daily triumphs and your failures
hold not even part.
Can you beleive
how they mock me
for the way that I speak?
“Logan uses big words now.”
There’s nothing so
beautifully individual
as one’s pattern of speech,
the path to self-expression,
the words that hang on your lips,
whispering to the listener
the secrets about who you are
and where you’ve been.
It’s ok if I’m sad,
but weird if I’m morose or sullen.
It’s normal if I’m happy
but too much if I’m euphoric.
I won’t reduce my language
just so that you like the sound if it.
(I don’t, and would not, hurl insults at another’s self-expression, and I won’t carry shame — or ignominy, if you don’t mind — for mine.)
I looked around
the gymnasium,
thinking that, perhaps,
I had nothing
— an entire absence
of thoughts —
in common
with the humans around me.
I determined to find a
thread common
among us.
Finally, I posited to myself,
“well, everyone here
must foster
an identical faith,
a faith that says
the ceiling
of the gymnasium
won’t collapse
onto the floor
tonight.”
My heart
races when I
read Scripture,
for it is my heart,
and it has been
found out.
As an ink pen,
you express yourself
in graceful, flowing strokes,
and I, your parchment,
would let you practice
your cursive
until you mastered
every letter.
(And, between letters,
I lament
that the alphabet
has only 26.)
The deeper
beneath the burden
you crawl,
the more
wisdom
you carry out
with you.
When you fall in love
with a monster,
you either become
a monster
or a monster-slayer;
what you cannot do
is remain who you were —
the former version
of yourself
was sacrified
the moment you let
a monster into your heart.
It seems
contrary to my faculty
to craft poetry
that uplifts
a reader,
rather than
pulling her
deeper into
introspection;
but it is likely
that I’m simply
overthinking it.
So, I’ve created a poem
to raise the reader
to heights of joy:
smooth coffee
dogs
radiant sunsets
good music
snow days
chocolate
captivating books
love notes
sandy beaches
inside jokes
new shoes
budding flowers
What simple things bring you joy?
It strikes me that
we should never
be broken
or shaken
by disparaging
words;
either the accusations
are true,
and we, should, therefore,
cherish the enlightenment
and be motivated to effect
interior transformation,
or the accusations
are unfounded,
a symptom of the evil
that plagues the accuser.
When untruths are
leveled against us,
it is only the slanderer
who is made less,
deadened (somehow)
even further.
I edit my work,
but not early
as often
as my work
edits me.
Faith, Health, and Other Musings 