This is What I Do.

This is what I do.
I sit. I stare into the air.
No matter what or who surround me,
I lose myself in the emptiness.

And I wait. Sooner or later the walls
around my feelings begin to leak.
They always do. They always did,

only I never recognized it.
The desease of suppression,
meant to protect (and perhaps, for a time, it did)

But in the end poison always wins
unless drawn out, spat out,
and left behind.

And so I stare. I wait.

I have become patient.
fortunately so too have the people around me.
More so than me, I think.

The wall leaks. The words come. Feelings come,
the ones behind my equanimity.
Sometimes I like them.

Sometimes I am a bit afraid, or angry or perplexed.
Sometimes a bit more than a bit.
Whatever they are, I write them.

Usually the first draft is pretty bad.
Rawness often is. From that moment of bloodletting
it becomes craft. Carving angels from marble.

This is where it turns from wound to word,
Where I sigh at the release,
and the child takes over, teasing, twisting,

playing with the language I was taught to respect,
seeking to speak my deepest truth, gratitude
for an unexpected love

without boring the people who visit each day.

About this poem

This began as a journal entry based on a reader’s very kind comments a few days ago. Somewhere along the way it turned into a love poem. Love for God and love for the woman who has made my life become something more joyful than I ever believed I would have again. Four years into the marriage and seven years into the relationship and I am still wonderous.

The picture is her (and I). I don’t have any pictures of God.

Tom