They aspire to be like us,
or at least,
what we thought we wanted
to be.
Perfect.
Unblemished bodies,
fake skin over cold metal,
polished to the nth
degree of something
as yet unexplored,
waiting to be birthed.
They aspire.
But, they can never be us;
they miss the whole point.
And maybe so do we.
We are human, and they
have already shown us
something important.
We cry. We laugh. We hurt.
We need each other.
And we are already perfect.
In our imperfection.
Perfect © Susan L Hart 2024
Journey
River winding to
the sea, my soul searches for
answers in ripples.
I Am Ocean
Snowflakes
falling softly
tentatively
pure, white
innocent
new life.
I Am one.
Earth
cold hard
dormant
I land here.
I am ice, I am lost.
I wait.
Spring comes
warm sun,
I melt into
playing, trickling
tiny Rivulet.
I am born.
Playful riffles
gently learning
to flow
to maneuver
to be Stream.
Time passing,
stream is good
but I want more,
then suddenly –
rushing, roaring,
swirling, foaming
I become River.
Sometimes sunlight
flowing smoothly,
other times storms,
rocks, gashing
hard, struggling.
Learning
to be with rocks,
trees, sky,
other rivulets,
and streams.
I Am more.
Time passing,
waiting and
wanting,
with a deep
hunger inside
for vast.
And finally,
I let go
of myself
and transform,
to endless, infinite
water ocean.
I die.
I am born.
I Am One.
Poetry is from Soul Journey: The Poetry of Life.
Message in a Bottle
Chisel not my name
onto elegant stone,
so you that I love
might become slave
to a time and place
that no longer holds
my soul, to which you
could become tied,
lost in sorrow and
life’s limitations.
Rather, joyfully cast
my dust to the wind, so
I may dance on the breeze,
and one day as the leaves
rustle gently overhead,
you will feel me there,
riding a ray of sunshine
kissing your face, and
I’ll whisper in your ear,
“Remember to live free.”
Happy
True, real, enduring,
happiness is being at
peace with who we are.
Poems are from Soul Journey: The Poetry of Life.
Your life is precious,
so spend your moments wisely.
Tick-tock, oops, they’re gone!
“Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn” are the profound last lines of the poem, Calmly We Walk through This April’s Day, by Delmore Schwartz. It’s a beautiful philosophical ponderation on the passage of time, with a particularly great wrap-up last stanza.
The seconds, minutes, hours tick away relentlessly. Our lives are busy, and inundated with many distractions and responsibilities. Lately I’m looking at my age and the years that have passed, and thinking, “Wow! It’s going faster than I ever could have imagined when I was 18.”
Realistically, we don’t have time to sit around and ponder endlessly about the value of time and our lives. But, it’s useful to carve out a little time (from time to time) for such introspection. Because your life IS precious, and the clock IS ticking. Ask yourself in this moment, are you spending it the way you would really like to? In reply to that, I will close with my poem Tick-tock Madman:
Tick-tock Madman
That round evil man
with his shallow pretty face
leers from my wall.
Cruelly and incessantly,
he chips away at my life
with his sharp little pick-axe.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
My days mete out
in an endless dribble of
tasks and responsibilities,
and he watches me.
Be on time, get it right!
Get up again, do it again.
and again, and again, and again.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
I thought he was my friend
that insidious little man,
Mom said he was!
Just dress for success,
always be on time,
and your life will be right.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Then one day I woke up
and my life felt all wrong.
Where are my dreams
you cunning little man?
You stole them while
I toiled to your
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Oh poacher of my hours!
Is there time for me?
Still hope for me?
The Me you took while
I played by the rules,
always obeying time.
And that smug little man
with his false pretty face
just stares coldly at me
from his unfeeling wall.
Silent he is, but for
the relentless
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Lifetime is from Hart Haiku Vol. 1 / Tick-tock Madman is from Soul Journey: The Poetry of Life
“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
~ Walt Whitman (1819-1892) ~ Preface to Leaves of Grass, 1855
Do you think the poetry of poets such as Whitman, Thoreau, and Emerson is outdated, or are the concepts classic, and therefore never go out of style? They are the basics of life, and speak to the fundamental principles that humanity aspires to, over and over again.
Whitman speaks here (in a very eloquent way) of love, compassion, connectedness, humility, courage, determination, discernment, independence of thought, knowing and being true to one’s self.
If these principles have gone “out of style” at the moment, perhaps it’s time to bring them back…
More inspirational quotes by Walt Whitman:
“Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.”
“I am large, I contain multitudes”
“Do anything, but let it produce joy.”
“Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.”
“Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.”
“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. So medicine, law, business, engineering… these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love… these are what we stay alive for.”
Life Is a Gift (Susan L Hart)
It’s a blue-sky day,
one of those
beauteous blue-full,
joyously jocular,
splendidly splashy,
exceptional days –
I long to shout
LIFE IS A GIFT
in unmistakable
letters across the
blue shiny yonder,
to imprint them
indelibly on your
mind, so you’ll –
Remember when
the dark clouds roll
in, on a day when
life feels pissy and
oh so problematic,
to take a deep breath,
and close your eyes,
and gently pull the
gray gloom aside,
to see those big
oh so true words
I etched on blue
for you, so that
you’d never forget –
Life is a gift.
Life is a Gift © Susan L Hart 2024 / Is an excerpt from my ebook Soul Journey: The Poetry of Life.
Susan L Hart / Author 