April is National Poetry Month. Every year, my dear friend (and poet Extraordinaire), Mary Lee Hahn chooses a theme, and writes a poem each day. Mary Lee blogs and posts her poems at two different places- YEAR OF READING and a fabulous new poetry blog POETREPOSITORY.
This year, Mary Lee has chosen the theme, "PO-EMotions." She promises, "This year, I will write a poem a day that either evokes an emotion, or uses an emotion word in the title or body of the poem." Her list of emotions is here. I'm joining her, at least some days.
"Longing"
Living with
unfulfilled desire
is like stepping on
a shard of glass
at first it protrudes
and pains regularly
if you pick at it
try to remove it
with fingernails or tweezers
it hurts worse
soon you learn
you can avoid the pain
if you do not step
in certain ways
eventually
a callous grows
and you become accustomed
to the hard bump
on the bottom of your foot
every once in a while
you step wrong
and a stab of pain
shoots heart ward
but most of the time
the desire is just there
causing that constant throb
of endurable
discomfort
(c) Carol Wilcox, 2015
6 comments:
Yes, yes, yes. That is what it feels like to have an unfulfilled desire. I hope you find your desires filled.
How perfectly you described longing, Carol. I'm going through a little of that myself today and it feels like if I step around the issue, it won't hurt so much. But, inevitably, you can only be so careful for so long because the pain is still there. Right?
So true...but stepping wrong is yet a reminder of our human condition, isn't it, of longing for and believing in desires.
"endurable/discomfort"
Great word choice. So often we have to hide what matters most and get on with the rest of it.
"shoots heart ward", always. Beautiful, Carol. That bump stays, & eventually to me it seems that one must not avoid anymore. I just don't know when. Guess it's different for everyone.
What Tara said. We need to consider our desires because they are a part of us. This is great.
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