Category: poetry

Christian D.Larson, Female Offenders, John O'Donohue, poems for the New Year, poetry, Writing, Writing Inside VT

Two Poems to Think About for the New Year

Mona Alvarado Frazier

So many thought provoking articles appeared this last week about the new year, new beginnings, dreams to reach for, and things to think about. 

Two poems that captured my attention are shared here for you to turn over in your mind, maybe help you to pick up a pen, type some words, sketch, or sing. 
This first poem is listed as a writing prompt on the Writing Inside VT blog where writers Sarah W. Bartlett and Marybeth Redmond bring ” incarcerated women’s words from the inside-out.” They both volunteer at Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility and facilitate weekly writing circles. 
For a New Beginning
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
~ John O’Donohue ~
Consider what you are leaving behind in 2012 and what you are bringing forward into 2013.

This poem reminded me of a cocoon breaking open, an unfurling of new untested wings, slow, hesitant, then steady. We may have been on this same route many times before, but this time it’s going to be different. Maybe not a giant step, maybe only a small leap. Whatever the size it’s a link from past to future.

This poem was on my Facebook.

Can you make this promise to yourself? Do you dare? Read it, say it, believe it. 

Breast cancer, Chingonas, Grief, Hospice, Parenting, poetry, Wisdom

Hiding From Grief

Mona Alvarado Frazier

Before I sat down at the keyboard this morning, my daughter swung open my bedroom door, crying. 

She had just received a text from her close friend that her mother died after a couple of weeks in hospice care. 

Her friends mother had breast cancer several years ago and it returned last year. Her mother was a little younger than I. Her remission was longer than mine.

I’m on a roller coaster of emotions: Sad that this young woman, my daughter’s age, has lost her mother, anxious because I’m seven years out of my own breast cancer diagnosis and the thought of its return not only looms in my face, but in my daughter’s because we know she is at higher risk for BC now. I wanted to yell:

http://www.vinylmaniatshirts.com/breastcancer.html

We hugged until her sobs stopped. Her friend said she’d text again later. My daughter didn’t know if she should go over and see her friend or not, then went back to her room. I didn’t know either. 

My desire to do something to help left me unable to speak out loud. I think I was trying to hide my grief. So I do what I do, I write things out to find answers. 

The first question: Why do I feel anxious?  

The second: How can I help? 

 I began writing on the closest piece of paper. The sadness of hearing this news, coupled with the notice of my aunts impending death last week and my mother’s recent hospital stay, is the main reason I was anxious. My daughter’s grief this morning pushed me over the edge. A mother doesn’t want her children to hurt, kid children or YA children. 

After a few more minutes of writing I wanted to crawl back into bed and cry, but I didn’t. That’s not very chingona for me to start crying while my daughter is upset-I told myself. It was a fleeting thought because I didn’t make it to my bed, I sat in my chair and cried.The anxiety diminished.

My cell phone played its pinball noise. My boyfriend texted “Good Morning, what are you doing?” For once I said exactly what I was doing and why. After a few minutes he texted “I’ll pray for you.” That helped me-a lot.

My daughter came into my room and ask if I thought it’d be okay if she just showed up at her friends house. She noticed my reddened eyes and asked me what was going on. I confessed my reasons for crying which made her cry, “Don’t say that, don’t say ‘what if your cancer comes back.'” 

But I said what has been pent up inside me for a few days, cried again, and said to let me have my feelings. My daughter nodded her head, we hugged and cried some more. I told her it’s okay that she said what she said, I know she’s afraid too sometimes, it’s okay to cry and not know what to do. 

“I’m going to get dressed, go over to see her,” my daughter said, swiping at her tears. 

And then I knew the answer to the second question: How can I help? 

Sometimes the best thing to help someone is to just listen, hug them, hold their hand, acknowledge the pain, be with them, or let them know you’re thinking of them. 

Hiding grief catches up with you. Sometimes crying and not knowing what to do is the most chingona thing you can do at the time. Many times crying, writing, and feeling your feelings helps to end the roller coaster ride.  

Back Toward Light

This poem found me today and I it: 

There is a Sacredness in Tears.
They are the bearers of unspoken prayers, words, pain and hope.

They can reach out and touch hearts, and heal.

Don’t ever take any one’s tears for granted.
And don’t let anyone make you feel bad if you need to cry sometimes.
Feeling – is Healing.

Tears are “Raindrops” – from the Storms of the Soul.
And only You know what Storms you have walked through. ♥

~ Kiran Shaikh