"Reflections" and super man band aids

I never really shared my goal to post once a week although this was initially my aim. I haven't met it consistently yet, because I prefer to post things I have written recently or older works that I once again feel are important to my life and current clarity. The role poetry plays in my life cycles and I didn't write any poetry this week, so I was sifting through old poetry files and came a cross this from a couple years ago.

I find it just as true now that I recognize myself more in the eyes of strangers when sharing a genuine smile than I do at any other time. It is kind of puzzling to realize that amidst all the search for self that goes on in the world, forgetting that search by tripping on a crack in someone else's heart ultimately heals your own. May we all trip more often and carry super man band aids.

"Reflections"

Who am I?
Do I recognize myself?
Is my image in the mirror really me?
I feel more like myself smiling into the eyes of strangers
than I do by looking in a mirror or with inflection.
Is that the right word?
It's not reflection but action.
“Smiling from the inside out.”
Forgetting to wonder about identity
by getting lost in work and service,
and in the process being your true self
or a better self.

Inflection - Introspection... same diff. Not really, but sometimes it seems wrong to change a poem two years later, because it changes the essence of the moment it captures, when the right words don't always come when called.

hatching heart

I am waiting for my heart to hatch
out of it's crisp shell,
so it can grow and cheep and learn to fly,
leave its nest and seek a home outside my chest.

currency

Time was currency to my head,
but I neglected to pay my heart.
I left it starving, bleeding, believing-
until it could no more.
Hope had fallen and
my heart took its last breath.
My brain was rich with time,
but empty of all air and care.
My soul could not survive fragmented in two.
Oh they fight and tug for every drop and dime.
But until they can agree,
I wait for harmony
so that in peace I can exist.
No- thrive!

perched on a power line

you can't stay high in the sky every day.
sometimes the storm comes in before you make it safely home
and you perch on a power line
watching the energy of all the people going by
unable to tap into the power of flight
as they go on slowed by gravity,
but not hindered by the pressure of the air you both breathe,
but which you need to lift you up.
or you can land on a telephone wire
and make the most important call you can.

greenhouse

I would rather be a green house than a castle's fortress walls.
Transparent to the world most times,
showing the life within and all the time
warmer than any outside face tipped towards the sun.
This would be a better way to live a life than hidden within stone,
for treasures of real value: growth!
are there for all to see.
Instead of a heart set on physical things,
a life driven by becoming something.

love of life and laughter

I wrote this sitting in the fishbowl last January and dedicated it to some of my dearest friends... you know who you are :) I have the past couple weeks felt these feelings renewed.

I want more than my eyes to convey my laughter
and my smile- the joy within.
I want my love of life to leak out my soul
through my fingertips and toes.
I want the air to sense and send it out
upon each breeze and drifting sunbeam.
I want the love to spread
make you catch your breath and sigh
make green things grow beneath your feet
and help you know that I feel God's love and light
and I can't contain it when you are by my side.

Tribute to the girls of apartment 14

They live life like I want to:
too busy living and looking to take a photograph
or busy finding pictures and opportunities to catch them.
putting seriousness on hold and making it listen to classical music before putting it through to their soul, because their soul has plenty of other ad-jective, emotional callers.
breathing in and sleeping in
guilt free.
no sighing.
giggles and gut instincts.
open doors and cards on the floor.
all love.
I walk in, plop on the couch and I'm home.