Sunshine

Have you heard the song Sunshine (Come on Lady) by Josh Rouse? It's been stuck in my head all morning, except I've been subconsciously substituting a few words here and there like, "Come on baby, take this mom and make her right . . ."

I didn't even realize it at first. But I guess it should be expected since my head is basically buzzing all day with: babybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybaby...

Rising

The sun is now rising
above the pine-topped ridge
and filling my eyes
with golden light.
Flooding my desk
with brightness.
And illuminating
all the dark corners.

Just

I'm convinced it's Spring. The calendar and maybe the forecast wants you to think otherwise, but Spring is just as much an inside thing as it is an outside. Spring, to use the brilliance of cummings, is "everything/which is natural which is infinite which is yes." Today it is Spring because my days don't seem quite so dark. Because the world is full of little sprouting yeses and budding truths. It is alive again. There is something about Spring that e.e. cummings understands.

in Just

by e.e. cummings

in Just-

spring when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far and wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles

far

and

wee

as a note: one of the most beautiful things about cummings is how he arranges words on the page. Blogger hasn't figured out how to let us be equally as beautiful yet (which is why there are a few poems I've written that I haven't posted even though I've been asked to). But I couldn't pass up posting this one. It's been in my head all day. However, if you really want the full experience, you just need to see it on the printed page.

Poems

I love my creative writing class. It's a chance to finally put to use the things that I jot down and think about all the time. We just finished up our poetry unit and here is one hot off the press (or the Blogosphere).

In the Orange Glow of Apricots

The sunlight leapt, with my gaze, out the large glass windows
And into the yard, up the trunk.
There, light met the warm apricot tree in full bloom
The twisting branches reaching up remind me of the littleness of us
With tube socks and patterned stretch pants, scaling up the tree to the tippy top
Only to find we were too scared to climb back down alone.

We climbed in the attitude of invincibility,
The kind that cloaked our innocence in courage
And watched as our hands
Worked their way, branch over branch,
Beyond what we thought we could climb.
The summers slipped more slowly then,
With afternoons spent in saturated sunshine and swinging from limbs

Our invincibility lost vitality the day we found out
Your mom was sick in a serious way.
We ran to the base of the trunk and
In sunlit shadows climbed, this time with purpose, resolve,
Necessity to get above the news, up the branches to fresh air.
We sat there and breathed in the scent of orange and yellow fruit
Which was growing and dropping to the ground
Like us.

I went back a day ago to see it,
The gnarled bark wrapping towards the sky
Drew my eyes upward as I stood remembering the time
When we used to fit between the branches
And let the closeness of the leaves
Hold us while we watched the patterns of dancing light
And waited for the rain to stop.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

Nine

Nine years ago today
Pens inked the paper that signaled
The U-haul to take my bedroom
Across town
Down a hill
Away

I was nine years old
and learning how to name
all the States on a map
There was a fort
Across the street
down the cul-de-sac
Close

Bricks, cream carpet
Boxes labeled "Bedroom #3"
That was mine
And I opened up the packing tape
My own Christmas of all
The things I re-gifted to
Myself

Nine, nine, ninety-nine
I found a place to grow
To sink my roots deep and
Suck until my mouth was full
of Light.

Spare

Can you spare some conversation?

How can you teach them
when there are such lessons to be learned?
After all, we have the same common denominator.
Zero.

I felt like a rarity
It's my choice to feel
Like a rarity

These days rarities come in packs
Of six, or four, or ten, or more
Bound in string
But rarely headed by two

Can you spare some conversation?
Someone like you.

Still waiting.

Turn

She turned her heart inside out
And wore it that way
For you

Unprotected

With all those strange projections
Growing out
Instead of

In.

Fresh
Home
Scented
Summer.

Warm Apricots on a sun tree

You.

Now

Right now I want to read poetry and remember the beautiful words I ingested in London. I miss them. Come back Mr. Blake. Return fair Wordsworth. Come Eliot, Milton and Donne, Keats, Clare and Herbert. Hark one and all! I wish they were all in my pocket, so I could open it just a peak when I was feeling a little homesick, and they would recite fond words to enlighten and illuminate my step. Everyone needs to carry a little sunshine in their pocket.

Repetition

The first assignment in our conceptual art class was to sit on the Tube for and hour and jot down the bits of overheard conversation, then take those bits and form a piece of poetry or prose. I really liked the assignment even though I felt a bit scummy doing it. But the project made me notice the repetition and the rhythm of transit, also how in the mobs of people there are still the individuals that don't get swept into the repeating endlessnesss.

Look at you
The thing is that, the thing is, the thing is I see now
It wasn’t even in my head to see you
Don’t you see?
Wier kann nicht
Sehen

Change here for the Jubilee Line

Stop
It’s not that far, not that far, not that far
(I already told you)
Two or three I think, at least forty-two, a hundred
It’s the next station
Only one
Stop

Change here for the Piccadilly Line

Listen
You can’t, you can’t
I extended my arms
Listen
This generation, that generation, any generation
But what do you do if it doesn’t?
Listen
Move to the back
Make sure
Listen

Change here for the District and Circle Lines

He’s the man who carries
He’s proof to me that I got it
He’s my brother, my dad, that man there

Change here for the Central Line

Those are the one she feels like
Value what they value
I said yes, he said no
I felt like a rarity
It’s my choice to feel like a rarity
But then all you see is sand

Mali

Silver-Lined Heart
By Taylor Mali

I’m for reckless abandon
and spontaneous celebrations of nothing at all,
like the twin flutes I kept in the trunk of my car
in a box labeled Emergency Champagne Glasses!

Raise an unexpected glass to long, cold winters
and sweet hot summers and the beautiful confusion of the times in between.
To the unexpected drenching rain that leaves you soaking
wet and smiling breathless;
“We danced in the garden in torn sheets in the rain,”
we were christened in the sanctity of the sprinkler,
can’t you hear it singing out its Hallelujah?

Here’s to the soul-expanding power
of the simply beautiful.

See, things you hate, things you despise,
multinational corporations and lies that politicians tell,
injustices that make you mad as hell,
that’s all well and good.
And as far as writing poems goes,
I guess you should.
It just might be a poem that gets Mumia released,
brings an end to terrorism or peace in the middle east.

But as far as what soothes me, what inspires and moves me,
honesty behooves me to tell you your rage doesn’t move me.
See, like the darkest of clouds my heart has a silver lining,
which does not harken to the loudest whining,
but beats and stirs and grows ever more
when I learn of the things you’re actually for.

That’s why I’m for best friends, long drives, and smiles,
nothing but the sound of thinking for miles.
For the unconditional love of dogs:
may we learn the lessons of their love by heart.
For therapy when you need it,
and poetry when you need it.
And the wisdom to know the difference.

The solution to every problem usually involves some kind of liquid,
even if it’s only Emergency Champagne
or running through the sprinkler.
Can’t you hear it calling you?

I’m for crushes not acted upon, for admiration from afar,
for the delicate and the resiliant and the fragile human heart,
may it always heal stronger than it was before.
For walks in the woods, and the for the woods themselves,
by which I mean the trees. Definitely for the trees.
Window seats, and locally brewed beer,
and love letters written by hand with fountain pens:
I’m for all of these.

I’m for evolution more than revolution
unless you’re offering some kind of solution.

I’m for the courage it takes to volunteer, to say “yes,” “I believe,” and “I will.”
For the bright side, the glass half full, the silver lining,
and the optimists who consider darkness just a different kind of shining.

So don’t waste my time and your curses on verses
about what you are against, despise, and abhor.
Tell me what inspires you, what fulfills and fires you,
put your precious pen to paper and tell me what you’re for!

Someday

i pause to gather handfuls of them

before setting it all to the wind

wish it was more like her voice

whispery and thin, delivered on air

but i'm back here again

gathering once more

what for?

i'm tired of the same steps

the same songs and same words

circles

when can i just step step step

step step step

and how will it go

and when will it all blow

away

so step step step

so open the window

get outside and breath

it's not too cold still

sun will warm the chill

so tell me me

tell me

tell me

and step step step

step step step

away from here

i'm sick of this lens

that colors all the handfuls

i can't stop gathering

my arms so full

i turn to my pockets

and set to the wind

will it someday pick up

the air that needs to blow

and get it all clear and clean and out

and then i'll step step step

step step step

to the wind

Aloha

Heard this before?

Let's leave work early, flee from the city
Run to the suburbs and pack our bags
Let's fly to an island with no newspapers
We'll bring our swimsuits and swim all day
I think I forgot the suntan lotion
I think I forgot the film for the camera
But it's okay there's a store down the street
Where i can buy almost anything that I'll ever need
[The Robot Ate Me On Vacation (Part 2)]

I can't stop singing it. It just fits so well with my morning (at least the first half of it anyway).

After a six and half hour flight we touched down in Oahu this afternoon and were greeted by warm humid air that seemed to hug us as we got off the plane. It's like the difference between whole and skim milk, only breathing thick air doesn't clog your arteries. It just feels rich.

I love flying with Little Sister because she gets so excited about the entire ordeal. The whole experience is still fairly new to her and she relishes in everything from turbulence to on-flight party peanuts. It really makes flying a joy. I'm usually such an airplane sleeper that I can't stay awake on planes. I've been told this is abnormal. I wouldn't really know because I sleep through every flight I go on. This time was different. After situating ourselves and listening to a few tunes with the Sis the movie came on and it was actually one that I cared to watch. I really liked it. In fact, I cried. Big surprise? After I sketched for a few hours, ate a bit of lunch, and then read some of this. I'm finally finding time to sit down and read it. My goal is to finish it before I get back and reality starts to flood the shores of my life again. Problem is, I have a mound of homework to tackle between now and the 15th. (Maybe the reality tide never really receded?) Dental Cousin is on spring break (lucky Weber State son of a gun . . .) and the two high schoolers shrug and say "big deal." So I'm the poopy one writing a critical analysis while watching chick flicks. But honestly, I'd rather study on a beach than in the library any day. And I've already seen this movie.

Straight

Does the "Shuffle" function on ipods really shuffle? It seemed pretty all-knowing this afternoon as I sat at my desk and worked on yet another graphic design project. It felt like it went straight down the line and picked every song that would sting a little and played it. However, I really like a lot of those songs and the set was pretty much amazing. Here are the highlights. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. It made me realize that my pod is packed with quality tunes. Seriously.

There was a casualty this morning. Carnage in my bedroom, if you will . . .

Last Wednesday on a particularly bad day of spending close to 15 hours on campus, I slid off my bed after having a minor breakdown only to have my foot land on top of my straightener. It hasn't been the same since. It sits a little to the side and it now takes two hands to clamp it down. Truth be told it actually hasn't been the same since Germany. I blew the fuse in the youth hostel and two other times at my host family's house and it burnt out something inside so now the control over the temperature is basically nil. It makes things exciting I guess. Straightening my hair becomes a race against the impending heat so that I don't end up with half of my hair lying there singed on the floor. Today I received a text telling me that my dear pink and brown straightener finally kicked the bucket. Roommate tried to use it and, well, let's just say that it is only held together by a cord now. All plastic shards and reminiscing aside, I'm a little relieved that it's gone. It's a sign that I really do need a new one.

I read a ridiculous post today by a gay man who accuses the church of teaching hatred and intolerance. He posted about this recent news story that shocked and saddened me along with thousands of others. He wrote:

We all live, I think, in a world where we live as if the world is better than it really is. That the jokes and prejudice and underlying hatred is okay. I have two sons who love their dad, but they still go to a church that teaches them that I am not worthy of their love and that I won't be in heaven with them. I have a mother who would rather spend time at that church than with me or my sister, who happens to be dating a woman right now. All she has for us is recommendations to pray and read the scripture. There are no questions from them about what we feel or how we think or what it does to us to see them spend their life and time on an organization that teaches misunderstanding and hatred.

It made me so sad for him to read his words and see how terribly he misunderstands the church he once loved and understood. He spends so much time victimizing himself and accusing others of misunderstanding and mistreatment that he forgets that he too, is missing major truths. I commented on his post, reminding him that the church is founded on Christ who teaches nothing but tolerance and love. To accuse the Church of propagating hatred towards others blasphemes the name of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He shot back an unfounded rebuttal. His focus is solely on people who don't adhere to the teachings of the gospel. People are fallible and incredibly human. But the Church, a living organization that embraces change sparked by revelation, is not. It is divine and perfect in its doctrine; whole and complete for the times in which it stands. Members who aren't perfect don't detract from the institution's truth and relevancy, only their own living testimony.

I have always believed that everyone could be more tolerant and loving of those who we view as different. I've grown up with those I love who embrace alternative lifestyles and although it saddens me to watch them stray and struggle, it only makes me love them more ardently and want to share my light and love with them more earnestly. Without a loving place to return to who would want to return? Perfect love casteth out fear. Charity never faileth. I love because I have hope that all things will be perfected in Christ.

Dialog

Isn't it strange how fast he knows?
Yeah. Think about it. He knows as much as him, but more than him. He knows something more than her or her or him, but not them. Most likely, he knows somethings more than me.

I knew it was coming.
You did?
I did.
How?
A little bird told me. It was wearing a green shirt.

You should say that.
No.
Why not?
It isn't nice to say some things.
It isn't nice to not say other things.

It was weird. I wanted to do two things at once.
That's not weird for you. You're a professional multitasker. I think you could make an olympic sport of it.
I hope I don't make an olympic sport of this.

All I want right now is to pull the sky over my eyes and sleep in the glittering dark.
I can arrange that.


I wrote this over a month ago, but it's funny how things come full circle. It's poignantly relevant now.

I'm Still Here

Sun went down, city sleeps now
But I’m still here I know why I’m not sleeping

You were there, where I first saw you
Sitting near strumming all those chords
Did you know did you know some were not yours?
They were mine They were my heart chords

I didn’t mean to make you cry
But it hurt Deeper than I thought than it would sting
Did you know did you know what you were doing?

I cried I realized I cried A part of me died I cried
But now I have to can fly ‘Cause you’re making me bud wings

Things will be different now. Better now. Hopefully now.

Light

". . .whatsoever is light, is good, because it is discernible"

I was reading and wishing I could taste light. Wouldn't that be magical? I imagine its like holding a warm cloud in your mouth until your eyes illuminate with discernible brightness and the corners of your mouth can't keep themselves from turning heavenward. It would be filling and delicious. Probably better than Butterbeer I think. . .

I sometimes wish I had a spiritual flashlight that I could shine on areas of uncertainty and confusion and make them discernible. I'd carry it with me everywhere. But I guess, in a sense, I do have a constant guide who can help me distinguish and determine what is right and good. Thoughts can get so muddled and conflicted. They zoom around and bounce off each other in the dark catacombs of my skull. It's hard to sort them out, tie them down, line them up, measure, weigh, define. It reminds me of a song with a line that goes, "sometimes an on/off switch would sure come in handy."

Pause

I'm sure most of us have encountered the scenario when you are walking towards a cross walk and are then met with a moment of indecision when the hand starts flashing, but you're still 20 yards away from the street. Usually, my time is so short and things are planned so tightly that I put on my speed walking legs and barely make it as the light for oncoming traffic turns green.

Today I

took

a

breath

and waited.

It was a pleasant wait. I appreciated the stingy cold that brushed past my face that contrasted my warm body buried under layers of clothes; like I was a deep radiating core of magma surrounded by protective layers. Mmmm. Cozy.

Soon enough the light turned and I began my silent walk home. I paused by a tree that I pass multiple times every day on my way to and from campus. I gazed up at its canopy of branches and let my eyes feast on the multicolored bark. It testified to me that God truly is the Master Artist.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
[ee cummings]

Heart

I was thinking about hearts today. A few months ago I did a fairly in depth scripture study about the heart and found quite a few intriguing references on the subject. The heart has a plethora of uses not considered or outlined by typical anatomy books. The heart is referred to as seeing, hearing, feeling, exercising, aching, breaking, weeping...how did the heart accumulate so many uses and abilities? Last night I was impressed by the heart's ability to hurt.

The first time I remember the internal aching that stemmed from saddness was after a childhood friend committed suicide in ninth grade. I remember walking to school after the funeral--looking at my feet cross the lawn, damp from morning dew--and asking my cousin in a quivering voice why my heart hurt. I couldn't understand how this vital organ was so closely connected with my emotions. She had no answer for me, and I still don't understand it. But I vividly remember the pain that was so tangeble and real to me then. As a fourteen-year-old coping with the passing of a friend, I could feel the fibers of my heart contorting to parallel my muddled mind. It was a feeling as real as pricking my finger, but the hurt went deeper.

As I got in my car last night, I once again felt the feeling of a pain, a weight in my chest, as if my once living, pumping heart had turned to marble and was putting undue stress on the vessels and arteries connected to it. I should have laid down to help the pulling at my heart strings. I did not cry, nor was I inclined to do so. I just sat there and felt my heart, sad, but relieved. I again was struck with wonder. How are you feeling with me? How do you provide me with the vital stuff of life, and then hang there and sulk? How are you, my heart, almost like a separate entity in my chest, beating along with my spirit, keeping me in step with the rest of the world, and still lying close to my emotions and helping me understand it all?

Hearts are so confusing. It's hard for me to sort out feelings which all seem to be stored (whether metaphorically or literally, I haven't yet determined) in my heart. I wish I could take it out and piece together the confused parts and put them back in some orderly, seemingly understandable fashion. I wrote a song once that I never finished. It was while I was having some of these same feelings of wanting to take a closer look at my heart and my feelings and sort out the confusion. It was written almost a year ago to date:

How does one capture a feeling
And bottle it for later use
Study it and see if it is all there or not

And how do you examine that feeling
You see my lenses they don’t work
I need a microscope that can view my heart

How can I say I love you?
Do you expect me to?
How can you say you love me?
I’m only seventeen

Is this just an over reaction
One that I will look back on
And see how I made a fool of myself

Or there really truth to this feeling
The one that I just can’t pin down
I want to crack my heart open and pull it out

So then I could really see
What you mean to me
It isn’t black and white
What if it isn’t right

So what to do now? Where do I turn?
There’s only one that I know of where to look
Don’t follow me, I shouldn’t be on your mind
Just turn and see, the truth

How can I say I love you?
Do you really expect me to?
How can you say you love me?
Did you forget I’m just seventeen

How can’t I say I love you?
How do I find the truth
Of how I really feel?
I want to see if it’s real

So what to do now? Where do I turn?
There’s only one that I know of where to look
Don’t follow me, don’t you see
I shouldn’t be on your mind it just isn’t right
Not now

Lyrics

I have always been a firm believer that music touches us in ways that are incomprehensible, even to ourselves. Sometimes for me, it feels like the only way to wrap my head around what I'm feeling is to write a lyric, or a melody about it. But sometimes it just feels like every song was written just for me, like every lyric was fit together so precisely as to narrate my current situation. Tonight ABBA was singing the sounds of my soul. When I am the closest to my emotions, music speaks to me about myself and helps me realize what I'm doing. Could artists truly be so omniscient?

Need

Not The One You Need

I'm still praying for some closure
A way to make myself sure
That I can walk far away from you

So let's get out of our old feet
And walk on to a brand new street
Get away from the mess we have created slowly

Why can't you see
That i'm not the one you need
I'm just the one who makes you bleed
Take it from me
You're wise to walk the other way
You know what happens when we stay
Here too long

I knew you wouldn't struggle
As I tried to put you under
You see you're just too nice to me

And that's why you make it so hard
Cause I know that you're the one who's scarred
And I'm the one doing all the damage, all the damage to you

Why can't you see
That I'm not the one you need
I'm just the one who makes you bleed
Take it from me
Bruises sustained shouldn't make you stay
It should turn your heart another way
But you hold on

(Hold on...)

I thought I heard you whipsering
When you thought that I was sleeping
But what you said didn't mean so much to me

And I know we could never make it
Because I just don't want to fake it
I think my heart is hidden, is hidden 'cross the sea

Why can't you see
That I'm not the one you need
I'm just the one who makes you bleed
Take it from me
I love you in a different light