Words and I

No words.

So many thoughts

conflicting emotions

overwhelming chaos.

No words.

For the pain I see

in others, in me

in the world.

Words

are the only way

to make sense

to pray

to begin to tell the stories

that need to be heard.

Words.

A blank page.

My voice

is all I have.

Words

To give.

Song in minor key

Life is like a song in minor key:

unresolved moments, seemingly discordant

achingly beautiful.

Hints of deeper, darker

truth

awakening in notes

you least expect.

Sadness turns to joy

as each note reveals the whole.

There is beauty in the dark notes.

Some poetry...

A friend suggested I share some of my poetry online. So here's two recent pieces I've written.

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This started as a journal entry in which I needed to vent about my tiredness at waiting, but it turned into a poem.

One day…

I will have a BA
I will find someone to be my best friend
and have a family together
I will be able to spend less money, save more
and not let money control me
I will make friends without being guarded
I will not feel tired
I will love someone with everything I have
I will not be captive to fear
I will have energy to live with abandon
I will not need medication to feel sane
I will write a book
and share my heart with the world
I will not care what people think
I will love others without condition
I will learn to (sometimes) leave the messes
I will know without a doubt that I am loved
Until then…

We live in the in-betweens.
(17/9/12)

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When I'm stressed or anxious or depressed sleep is the first thing to go. Night time is when I feel those things most intensely. We can run around all day trying to escape the struggles inside ourselves, but come darkness and there's nowhere to hide.

Close my eyes
Flick the switch
Let my mind run wild
The ache appears without warning
Breathe in
Breathe out
Shock settles into despair
I no longer know where the pain
Begins and ends.

Close my eyes
Flick the switch
Let the voices take control
Illusions and lies
Tell their stories
Until belief takes flight
I no longer know where truth
Begins and ends.

Close my eyes
Flick the switch
Darkness fills the night.
(18/2/13)

The Land of Dirt

The land of dirt is in my veins.

I was just three when my feet

first touched the light beige soil.

I was three when I first saw

a leper, wearing rags and begging

in front of the western burger restaurant.

I stared at the remnant, dead tree at the zoo,

imagining the sandy desert stretching

thousands of kilometres with not one tree left.

As I played in the dirt with my brothers

and tobogganed down the dunes on the edge of the city,

I was mildly aware:

Of the women at the river

washing their clothes by hand,

carrying children on their backs

and loads of wood on their head,

pounding what little yam or millet they had

to feed their families.

At three, and four and five and six, I was curious

about why people washed in such a brown, dirty river

and what the beggar man ate for dinner.

I understood that I lived on the edge

of the biggest, driest desert on earth

and that growing plants was near impossible.

And I understood that when I contracted a disease

rarely experienced in the developed world,

I had the medicine to save my life

in a day.

The land of dirt is in my veins.

Thousands of kilometres away and comfortably cool,

my walls contain fabric pictures

from another world.

Mementos of a place far removed from this

green, humid land-

soapstone elephants and wooden bowls.

Photographs of mud brick temples and nomads on their camels

remind me of an existence

most around me will never know.

I am twelve. And I remember

the women on the banks of the river

with babies on the backs and loads of wood on their heads.

The land of dirt is in my veins.

Although I sit in a state-of-the-art university

I am transported to the dirt

by the film showing the women

and the disease the babies on their backs

are dying from.

The land of dirt

appears without hope, without help.

Stories of economy, of corruption, of debt,

complicate and obscure the obvious-

In the land of dirt

life is unfair, unjust,

people are hungry

and people die

at rates not seen anywhere else in the world.

I am moved to learn-

the economics, the corruption, the debt,

to un-complicate the hopelessness and

locate the hope for the women at the river

with babies on their backs and loads of wood on their heads.

It’s 2012 and the women

are on the front page of a far away newspaper.

My mind trades the comfort of Sydney

for the river banks of the river in Niamey.

The horrific statistics no longer shock me,

the images no longer make me sick,

I know the babies are dying

and the women have no food to feed their families.

In Niger there is a drought

there is famine

there is hopelessness.

But I remember the women at the river

with babies on the backs and loads of wood on their head.

And because the land of dirt is in my veins

I will tell their story.

----

The place of my childhood - Niger- is facing one of it's worst famines in the last century. It is land-locked country almost entirely made up of Sahara Desert. It is one of the most undeveloped nations in the world, frequently seen at the bottom of the UNDP index and with some of the most consistently terrible women and child health statistics. 

Thankfully, it has begun to make it into our news in the past few weeks. But unfortunately the reality currently facing the country is not new and is the result of consistent neglect from the international community. The perfect storm of climate change-induced severe drought, rising food prices and poor aid and development responses to it's unique problems are causing widespread hunger and malnutrition.

This place holds a special place in my heart.

Here is a link to the story (including image gallery) from this weekend's Sydney Morning Herald that inspired the poem: A Tragedy in Niger

If you are interested in supporting any of the immediate relief efforts here are some links:

CARE Australia

Caritas Australia
World Vision
Oxfam

And for some further context, read this recent media release from Oxfam: Joint study finds Niger communities will run out of food before next harvest

Thank you for listening....

Breathing words again

Nearly every day this past month words have poured from my heart and head onto paper and screen. It started as just a few drops back in July – the first piece of prose I had written in years. And now it has turned into a river. Poetry I thought was lost is welling up inside.

Sometimes the words are poetic or profound, sometimes chaotic and incoherent. But the more I welcome them, allow them space to live and breathe, the more they come.

A friend complimented me today and I thought “I cannot help it! Often I am barely trying to write well... I’m simply trying to write. There's nothing special in that”.

I realise now that I had stopped feeling the same way as I used to.

I have always felt deeply, none more so than my teenage years. My most prolific period was during the usual periods of teenage angst (with some added complications along the way). Even as a fairly depressed 16 year old, I am so fond of the memories of sitting with other writer friends pouring out our souls in silence or together at Writer’s Camps.

But over the past few years I think I have begun to shut down. While pain, chaos and the mundane of life raged in and around me, it was easier to slowly close my heart; no longer hearing, seeing, writing, poetry. It was easier to feel less and give up words, than plumb the depths of wounds and thoughts and dreams.

I scribbled last night...

I stopped breathing

I stopped believing

I stopped feeling

The truth was

numbness is more painful

These days, though, I find myself feeling and breathing and releasing. Words reveal truths and pains and hope that I could not find elsewhere. They begin to tell the story that I have been safely locking up inside my heart.

Poet Gregory Orr describes this very process

“I believe in poetry as a way of surviving the emotional chaos, spiritual confusions and traumatic events that come with being alive… When I write a poem, I process experience. I take what’s inside me — the raw, chaotic material of feeling or memory — and translate it into words and then shape those words into the rhythmical language we call a poem. This process brings me a kind of wild joy. Before I was powerless and passive in the face of my confusion, but now I am active: the powerful shaper of my experience. I am transforming it into a lucid meaning."

I am beginning to breathe and feel and believe again. And I am so very grateful for the gift.

Beauty Comes

I know a girl. She is insanely talented, kind-hearted, loving and strong... and one of my most favourite people in the whole world.

Sometimes her life has been a mess. Sometime people have hurt her badly. But she believes in a God of hope and love and grace and transformation.

Among her many abilities, she is an artist.

Her art inspired me to write this poem.

for Lori (23-11-11)

the beauty comes
seemingly effortless
the colours and shades and objects
a reflection of a life lived
of battles fought
fears defeated
grace received and given
passion and love and brokenness
revealed in the open heart
of her beauty

pain is not her story
rejection and bitterness
will not hold her
the beauty comes
from wounds healed and healing
the beauty comes
from within