A CONTEMPLATION:

"Poetry is when an emotion has

found its thought and the thought"

has found words." -Robert Frost

I had an epiphahy today. I was watching a sad moment in one of the shows I like to watch and it gave me insight to why I write poetry the way I do.

I noticed a feeling of sadness, a contemplative questioning of life, if you will. I always hear a voice in my head kinda like Morgan Freeman's narration in Shawshank Redemption. If only my own voice sounded that rich. I'd make a mint in voiceovers.

As it is, his voice helps me to write, the flavor of his tenor helps me with words to most times understand which word sounds better in a line, although I'll be first to say, it doesn't always work.

The sadness I feel in each letter comes from my own life. I don't recall a childhood, filled with lots of laughter and joy and great Christmas scenes from the movies or even like the folks whose houses we would visit felt like. I recall the threat of repercussions hovering over us like a watchful, evil babysitter reminding us quietly not to do anything deemed wrong by our stepfather. It was never that you were going to be hit or punished so much as the mere idea, the ghost in your subconcious mind holding sway over you, knowing if you made one wrong move..a backhand, a fist, a hoe, a shovel, a belt..whatever was at hand, would follow.

I guess the rest of our lives were defined by that. A childhood lost in the anger, in the subjugation under someone to whom you belonged..not in a bond of love as a majority of families tend to be..but as a vassal to the whims of a despot?

Yeah, I guess that's slightly over the top in description, dramatic even..but it was pretty close to how we were raised.

So I write best when I'm sad or upset though an occasional poem will be light and airy, maybe; but always the hint of a sad kid that never got to enjoy life as a child.

It's okay, though. I survived the days and made what I could with what little I had and in a roundabout way, have the lack of said childhood to thank for discovering a love of reading inspired by a teacher that showed me there was a world out there that I could live vicariously in if I just read everything I could get my hands on.

My life has not been awful, when compared to others. It was only the childhood but like the tentacles of an octopus, that lack of childhood reached into so many parts of my life and it took a lot to overcome through the years..all the trauma and insecurity brought on by the past. But there has been so much beauty and like a painting, my past is the background of my personal canvas of words and I will tell my stories and hope to make at least one persons day easier with a pretty flower, a wonderful tree or perhaps a reminder of a moment that was.

After all, aren't moments what make up our memories? A second is a snapshot, a moment is a picture on the wall, an hour is a tapestry being woven in the moment by the moments..and days are life being filmed in full color for the future to remember us by!

Peace!!