The Joy of Spring

Poetry seems to requires emotion, knowledge of it, and of oneself.

I think this is the reason it has always seemed so perplexing and elusive. My access to a dynamic range of emotion was crippled by a childhood of alcoholism, abandonment and by the generations that preceded that were hard scrabble folks, just trying to get by. They handed down a stoicism and black and white thinking that still lingers inside of me and my remaining siblings. The bigger/harder emotions are left to the side, ignored whenever possible. If we don’t talk about it, does it really exist?

As this old gal dethaws, emotions are emerging, some more comfortable than others but all of them belonging and longing to be acknowledged. “Maybe I’ll take up poetry”, I think to myself. But, as I write that down, I can’t help but smile. One step at a time girl. Let’s learn to feel. Leave the magic words to someone else.

I’m reading Ada Limón and Dorothy Hunt. Sometimes the beauty of their words take my breath. 

I’m taking this gift of dethawing and being ever so grateful that winter comes to an end.