KALEIDOSCOPE: COLLECTIVE POETRY ROUND 15
On Wednesdays, I post a photograph on social media & ask my followers to contribute a line of poetry inspired by the photo. Later, I attempt to cobble together a cohesive piece of writing from as many of these suggestions as I can. If you’d like to get into the fun, follow me on my Rasjacobson Art Facebook Page. This week, there were 23 submissions offered by 19 people. In the end, I used ten suggestions. Thanks to everyone who participated!
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Many of you know I’ve been on the injured list for the past five months. Things have gotten worse over the last few weeks & I wound up in the hospital the day after Thanksgiving. I’m eagerly awaiting my upcoming appointment with the neurosurgeon next week.
Since I’ve been laid out, I’ve been watching a lot of LOST, a television series that aired back in 2004. I am currently on Season 3, and last night, I was struck by something one of the characters said.
“The universe has a way of course correcting. We don’t do things because we choose to do them, we do them because it is our path.”
John Locke’s worldview has been on my mind as I try to make sense of why I seem to keep moving from injury to illness to injury. Of course, the themes of loneliness & pain are present here, along with a lot of questioning the Universe.
Kaleidoscope
How clumsy I was
to fall on the pavement
at the art market, next to
a gaggle of dog toys, assorted
leashes & collars
with everything I had
on display. At ground zero,
I felt something shift & crunch, the emergency
workers rushing in, looking on, observing
calmly & me with a
funeral director’s face,
foolishly, refusing the ride
to the hospital so that
five months later,
I awake every morning
to a copper orange sky
with my spine on fire.
I have seen the sky like this before,
a pallet of pinks & purples,
another morning, when the eternal mystery
let down her guard, lifted
her veil & winked at me.
On that morning, the sun
bled into the sky,
onto the table, a reflection
of the trees —
or was it the moon?
My lips were white.
I said to myself, ‘This is not
a dream. This is real.’
Each shadow bears a scar,
a gun, a promise. All this magnificence
& no one to witness it.
So much pain
& no one to halve it.
If only you were here, the conversations we would have.
Outside, the sun bruises the sky.
My neighbor says, “Reflect, but never dwell.”
The pastor says, “The eyes cannot see
how beautiful injuries can be.”
If every day is an anecdote
I’ve had enough of this storyline.
Write me a new dawn.
Let me run in a strong wind
Too dangerous to go out in.
The sea is vaster
than I ever expected.
The trees, in their nakedness,
lean in & reach for me.
They whisper my name but
never come close enough
to call me home. And somehow,
we are just expected
to accept what happens, when
it is just
what happens
here.