I could have written something oozing with nostalgia. We are kinda good at that (see previous paragraph) but I didn't want a more angst-ridden version of my last poem and I also didn't want to make her too homesick. The Sunday before Christmas I was sitting during a Christmas program and something kind of unrelated struck me. I think the resulting words here are more like a New Years poem, in fact, than a Christmas one.
You know me, I am a sucker for definites. Beginnings and endings especially, framed by days and hours and concrete moments. I think I feel deeper in these moments, or awareness makes me feel as though I do. But this year I am especially grateful that things begin and that they end and that we have markers by which to measure the joys, the pains, the laughter, and the tears. I am glad for excuses to pause and reflect. And to hope. I am more grateful for this past year than I, yes I, could put into words. But I am perhaps even more grateful for the year before me. For every day before me. For every opportunity for growth, even if (and it usually does) come at the expense of comfort, that comes in the form of new years, new months, new weeks, days, even minutes. That it is never to late to become more than you were just before and to give more and love more and feel more. I am grateful for the days that have shaped me and grateful that sometimes I have to leave them behind.
And so: adieu, 2012; 2013, you have a stinking lot to live up to.
The Page Turner
My fingers know the white and black of keys
on the old piano in the cold front room,
know the whites that are chipped
and the blacks that sometimes stick.
They slip, like hands to gloves, into the memories
of melodies hovering over the ivories, waiting.
There are so many pages and notes I've learned by heart,
that with familiarity I could play without tiring;
but with the years, the pieces get longer,
impossible to memorize and my hands feel so small.
There are songs I would not choose to play,
were it not for the Master setting the pages before me.
"Play on", He whispers as he keeps time with a gentle tapping
while my fingers fumble to learn the notes as I go.
Sometimes I spend hours on a page, a line,
until my fingers rediscover their deftness,
and sometimes I have to play on, unrehearsed,
but always His hands turn the pages that mine can't.
At the end of each page: play on.
When my fingers get in the way: play on.
When I want to skip to the end: play on.
When this movement feels like home : play on.
When the words "the glory be thine",
when angelic host proclaimed,
when carpenter's hands healed,
when with the bitter cup: "play on",
whispers the author and finisher
of every masterpiece I will ever play,
my Master keeping time:
the watchful page-turner.
In passing... I know this blog hasn't seen a proper posting in months. Other than poetry, I mean. But I kinda feel okay about that. I remember talking to a friend who had been to see a fortune teller. Honest to goodness. She was telling me all about the experience and some advice the fortune teller told her stood out to me. That was years ago, and I can barely remember it. But it was something to the tune of being in a place and with people that make us want to create because we are closer to divinity when we are creating. Not bad for someone who makes a living focused on lines in people's hands. President Uchtdorf has said something similar. Anyway, I have kind of used that advice as a measuring stick of sorts. Not necessarily of my spirituality, but of balance in my life. And so three poems in the last few months would seem to testify that I've stuck some kind of right cord, despite the hours I spend researching which you would think to be the epitome of non-creative work. I'd like to think that poetry's re-entry into my life bespeaks in some sort of concrete, recordable form, to how great this year has been. That's all.
