Aug 2021
The feeling of fear meeting someone for the first time
the delight looking at a little child playing
near ecstasy smelling a magnolia blossom
a secure feeling upon seeing Pampas Grass.
The unsafe feeling being with the blonde man
who had been nothing but kind to me
then… finally I remembered
the sandy-haired boy who made an object of me
at age seven behind the barn on a summer day.
So much of the self is hidden
chaining me to the old
keeping me in a caterpillar state
stumbling over chunks of earth
ignorant of what can happen
in the cocoon.
But learning, writing, remembering
can make me a Monarch
flying into spring.
the delight looking at a little child playing
near ecstasy smelling a magnolia blossom
a secure feeling upon seeing Pampas Grass.
The unsafe feeling being with the blonde man
who had been nothing but kind to me
then… finally I remembered
the sandy-haired boy who made an object of me
at age seven behind the barn on a summer day.
So much of the self is hidden
chaining me to the old
keeping me in a caterpillar state
stumbling over chunks of earth
ignorant of what can happen
in the cocoon.
But learning, writing, remembering
can make me a Monarch
flying into spring.
I bow to Ray C. Stedman and his article: “The Great Mystery” and to Melanie Durand Grossman’s memoire, “Crossing Bayou Teche,” that brought a kind of enlightenment to her, her cousins, and others. The book effected in some of us a new awareness and freedom from formerly hidden realities that had shackled us to the past. This poem is part of my Teche series.
(M/DeSoto, TX)
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