Itinerant Seed

Last night I was a restless seed
Raring to leave the mother tree.
I dove into the swirling zephyr,
Floating carelessly over sleeping parishes
And wakeful woodland beasts,
But the morning rain sent me tumbling
Into the frigid arms of an unfeeling river,
And I bobbed atop its turbid waves,
Passing willowy cattails and
Auburn blurs of geese,
Until a merciful evening gale
Propelled me toward a muddy bank
Where I could rest my battered shell.
I had drifted off to dream of home
When an eagle stirred me from my slumber
And bade me ride upon her talon,
As it was too soon, she warned, to take root.

I've been busy helping others find their words

I haven't blogged much in the last few weeks. Today someone inquired about my absence from the blogosphere, causing me to consider the following:

1. People actually read my awful writing from time to time. Poor bastards.
2. If the best you poor bastards can do with your down time is read this nonsense, then I suppose I'd better deliver. ;)

An update:

Since October I have spent most of my waking hours at the high school where I work as a student teacher, coaching students with their writing. I have immersed myself in teaching, creating a workshop environment in my classroom and conducting feedback sessions with dozens of students before school, during my lunch break, during my planning period, and after school. At home I have pored over student papers, scrawling comments in the margins as I munch on pizza or Chinese food - who has time to cook?

I finish student teaching tomorrow, and tonight I find myself reflecting on how helping my students find their words has taught me innumerable lessons about language.

A few of those lessons:

1. Anyone can write. One only needs fair access to words.
2. The only cure for writer's block is writing.
3. We make much of words, of their power to create and destroy. But punctuation and white space are also potent forces which writers must learn to manipulate with care.
4. Writers must take their own advice. I frequently notice that my own writing improves when I consciously employ the strategies I teach my students. For me, good writing is not innate. Sometimes I write well and often I write poorly. On those days when the words cannot find me, I work more deliberately to find the words. I'm often surprised that my best writing does not occur naturally but purposefully. Mind you, this is not one of those days, and I am in no mood to heed my own instruction. :)

While I've enjoyed (nearly) every minute of student teaching, I look forward to moving on next week. For the next few months, I'll be interviewing for jobs, catching up on sleep, and of course, blogging for poor bastards with nothing better to do than read my crap.

Another Sunday Confessional

I am becoming exactly what I always wanted to be when I grew up. That doesn't happen for many people; I should feel blessed. I do feel blessed. But today I dream of the days when I had nothing, owned nothing, but nebulous dreams.

I remember a seventeen year-old Nadya, napping in a corner booth of the diner in between double shifts. I remember sleeping soundly, pleased with the morning's tips, which I would dutifully save in my college fund on my day off. I remember the euphoria and despair of young love, feverish first kisses and violent heartbreaks. I remember pimples and bad hair days and fashion blunders and chuckle at the realization that time does not alter everything.

I remember forceful encounters with mortality. I remember dying. I remember the hand that pulled me from hell and the mouth that breathed cool air into my burning lungs. I remember the crushing gratitude and elation I felt when I'd been given a second life. I remember decisively setting out to deserve it.

I remember the pang of - something - which reminded me that I'd left someone behind, buried among the mort and rubble. I remember jam-packing my new life with enough distractions to muffle each twinge. It almost worked. Except, of course, for the fact that I still remember.

Firewood

Is it so final?
Are we to entrench ourselves
In unforgiving earth,
Piteously compliant
Like wretched elms,
Mindlessly motionless,
Fettered by our own roots,
Subject to the whims
Of sun and moon,
Induced to live and die
And cast off our leaves
As spiteful seasons would please?
I pray for the axe
To pierce my side at last
And make me a kindling –
A stage for dancing flames.

A body at rest

I drink delicious nothing

Tumble fearlessly

Into the turbulent blue

Lean in brazenly

To kiss a mount of feathers.

The Argument

This is my first sonnet – and likely my last! I enjoy sonnets. I love to read them aloud and savor the sounds. I can spend hours taking apart a sonnet and examining each piece. But I learned today that I hate writing sonnets. I find them agonizingly restrictive and I can't seem to adhere to all the rules. I think that life is painful enough without adding sonnet-writing to the mix. :) Anyway, here is my attempt. Better to have tried and failed, right?



The Argument

My kingdom for a clever word to launch
At cunning men that to my ears lay siege,
I struggle for an argument to staunch
The rhetoric that passes through the sieve.
I wade through mire of pomposity
Assailed by beasts of unforgiving bog,
Not unaware of my complicity
In the creation of this verbal fog.
Who shall emerge when reason breaks the day
With rays of sense to penetrate the mist?
Will morning sun illuminate my way
Or light upon a target for their fists?
Perchance the true victor is she or he
Whose placid wisdom must needs wordless be.

Fraud

Adam's mom just died of cancer. Jenny's mother sits in prison for beating and molesting her children. Jenny will testify against her in court next week. Maggie was up late last night tending to her two-year-old. Jerome works nights at the Wal-Mart to help his dad with the rent. Tommy has a black eye and a fat lip this morning -  someone branded him a "faggot" last week. Suzie's parents practically live at the law firm; she hasn't seen them in days.


We tell them to write. We tell them language is freedom. We omit half the truth. The other half:


Words are but words
Dreams are but dreams
Our words cannot fair the unfair
They can only preach and prattle
and haggle over taxi fare –

Or they can scream.