When Deja vu beckons

This, my first poem on Vocal, was written two years ago and read by just one single, solitary, lone Author, Grz Colm. Thank you so much for being brave enough to go back into the dark ages to read my first entry on Vocal Grz, it means a lot.

The strange thing, almost an uncanny thing, is that I found and started reading and writing on Vocal during the Coronavirus Pandemic. Back then I was feeling so very vulnerable, like everyone else was, I imagine. People were dying everywhere and all around us panic abounded, no matter where in the world we were. We were all made to come face to face with our place in this world and to question the meaning of our existence.

This poem was a testament to my frame of mind back then.

What is the uncanny part, is that this challenge has reared its head when I am again feeling vulnerable, with a health issue that places me back in the same frame of mind. It reminds us that life is fleeting, and we should be the best we can be, both to ourselves and to others.

In the matter of me questioning my mortality, the poem begins with me wondering about the afterlife. I was working in close contact with people with the virus.

Vida Venidera (Afterlife)

I want to know what happens after I die, before I die.

I want to tell you it's ok to die.

There is joy and laughter after you die.

There is music and singing

Dancing and baking, swimming and basking

in the sunlight.

I had always written poetry from my younger days, ever since the appreciation for books, words and the art of poetry writing first dawned upon my innocent consciousness. I craved new ideas, new resources, new worlds to conquer, as do every child I imagine. I read comic books, I did love those superheroes back then, still do, although not necessarily the ones in comic books.

I imagine our Vocal beginnings were born from the mind or minds of a superhero(s). This was a daunting task to imagine and bring to fruition, I wish that I were that brave, to imagine putting my heart, mind and soul into an idea of bringing people together who love to write. Still, years later the idea still is bearing great literary fruit. Yes, there are many superheroes everywhere around us.

I see the writers here on Vocal as superheroes, baring your souls for all to see is no easy feat. Sorry ladies, but I especially applaud the men. Once upon a time we could not get men to so freely express their emotions, even privately, now they are writing to their heart's content. Bravo guys.

I regret not keeping my scribblings from back then, they were fleeting thoughts, written down by my whims and fancies, then got blown away by the winds of change. Had I kept those comic books, they would be worth a fortune today. Sigh!

My thoughts are not that different now than they were two years ago, they have just evolved and matured. I have sung the praises of Vocal in some of my articles, stated how far I have come from when I first began.

One other area that has improved is in the choice of choosing a cover picture for stories. Unsplash has been a virtual savior to many of us who can only do stickmen art, it has been an invaluable source of free pics from every walk of life, but the repetition of the same photograph on different stories was a bummer. When Vocal introduced the OpenAi concept it was a blessing. Now there are many other ways to obtain a cover photo if one chooses not to use Unsplash. I still use both, you can always interchange the two.

Many changes have occurred over the past two years, it is hard to accept sometimes, but nothing remains constant, we must adapt and become as transient as the changing of the seasons.

...............................................................................................