In Pursuit of Self-Expression

     I have a friend whom I follow on Facebook.  I knew her in the military--a street-savvy, "say-what-you-think" African American nurse from Philadelphia who now works at the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Hospital.  She is very active in her church and in social issues, such as raising money to feed the hungry and homeless in her city.  A few years ago she became interested in poetry.  Poetry?  I never pictured her reading poetry, let alone writing it. 
     We all pursue self-expression, and it becomes manifest in many ways.  One of my own expressions, as many of you know, is through photography.  I also had a bout of poetry writing myself, mostly from the time I was at Lycoming College through the time I was stationed at Tinker AFB in Oklahoma.  I was rummaging through a box a few days ago to see what I had packed away over 11 years ago, and I found a notebook in which I had carefully typed poems and writings by different authors that I particularly liked.  My rather amateurish poems were in the same book.  Some are sort of cute, many are very dark.  I am a "thinker," a "5" on the Enneagram scale, so I often contemplate heavy subjects--it's just who I am.  So many of these poems are somewhat esoteric and difficult to follow.  A lot deal with God, the Spirit, and death, because those are the things that I care about, believe in, and are interested in.  Although they seem to be dark, I found in re-reading them, there is almost always hope in the message. 
     I decided to post these poems just for kicks.  Years ago I would have never shared them out of embarrassment, or whatever.  Now, I'm not as concerned, so I decided to post some of them.  I haven't written poetry for many years.  I just don't take the time and now use other outlets for self-expression.  Whoever you are and whatever you do, I hope you take the time to contemplate life and find some creative way to express your inner poet.   


AQUILA

He finds no confidence in stone
     or strut
Immobile mountain cliffs
     where only thunder or earthquake
     has shuddered
Yet lifts his wings and floats
     on scattered molecules of air
With only starlight and wind
     to direct his dreaming.

(This is the first poem I ever wrote, at Lycoming College in a freshman writing class.  Years later in Kingman, AZ, I dedicated it to Donna Meyer, my flight instructor, who "gave me the gift of wings.")


SNOW

It is snowing
And as I look outside
Wonder engulfs me
It is the first snow
Yet not really
For as time ticks by
Seasons come and go
There is no first snow
Nor last snow
But one continuous snow
With short interludes of warming sunshine
The flakes dance before my eyes
Displaying their natural uniqueness
Each one falls gracefully
Each one different
But as they land
All uniqueness is lost in one
Eurytopic uniformity
The sun comes and all starts
To slowly seep into the ground
Yet the earth's never-ceasing rotation
Slowly carries the waters away
From the sun's warming rays
The waters freeze
The day ends
On the horizon new clouds form
Blotting out the glimmering stars
A chilled wind blows
While icy clouds creep forward
It is snowing
And as I look outside
Wonder engulfs me

(I love snow!  Written at Lycoming College in Rich Hall, 1978, for the same freshman writing class.)


The Cockroach

Eternally lost,
The stagnant, moldering air
     of summer
Contaminated
By raging particles
     too deadly for life to bear.
All is erased.
All is gone.
Only the wind and rain
     persist
To disturb earth's final
     enduring
     legacy.

(For the same class.  Scientists always said that if we wipe out life on this earth by using nuclear weapons, the cockroach will be the thing that will happily live on.)