hope is alive

Hello.

How was your Christmas?

Mine looked like this:

December 23rd: Oh What Fun!, a Christmas service for the whole family @VCC. I was an elf, and I found baby Jesus at the end. (He was under the tinsel, garland, and Christmas ornaments.) I went to Wal-Mart afterward, still dressed as an elf, and even amidst all the people walking through the parking lot, the guy selling garland picked me out of the crowd to pester me. I may have pointy shoes, but I'm a person, too. And I don't want your garland.

December 24th: Two Christmas Eve services, six Lindor white chocolate truffles, a nap, and another Christmas Eve service. I loved the darkness of the auditorium and hearing 170 voices sing out, "For He alone is worthy." It was beautiful and intimate, and I fell asleep that night thinking about how blessed I am to be in this church, with these people, and a child of this amazing God.

December 25th: The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned (Isa 9:2). I watched White Christmas and ate Raisin Bran in bed before heading out to spend the day with some of my favorite people on this earth. So much to make me laugh, so much to make me full, so many bourbon balls. I will not say I did not miss my family & the traditions I missed having for the first time in 24 years. But I am one blessed cookie to have the people in my life who are in my life.

December 26th: Happy day after merry Christmas day! (To quote Mom.) I went to work for a couple of hours, thought about how practical gas cards are & how I wouldn't be sad to get one, and was surprised by a Speedway card at my desk! And when I pulled into the gas station, my empty light was glowing. It's little things like a full tank of gas that make my entire day glowier. And the fact that I've scrubbed my bathroom and kitchen floors and watched a few episodes of The King of Queens and wrote a poem.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas of experiencing God with us, wherever you were and with whomever you were. I for one hope to continue to experience His nearness in new and dependable ways in the days after Christmas. For He alone is worthy.

to grape-nuts

O grape-nuts, how do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee with milk, cinnamon, and honey,
and peaches, ripe,
and juices running.
I love thee soggy, soaked, and warm,
I love thee cold and crunchy in form.
I love thee with berries, blue or straw,
icy and frozen,
or mushy with thaw.
I love thee together with Raisin Bran,
flakes and buds, hand-in-hand.
I love thee upon the rise of the sun,
I love thee after the day is done.
I love thee while I'm young, and bequeath:
I'll love thee when I have false teeth.

Papa Bear

Dad and I watch The O'Reilly Factor almost every night. Some guy wrote O'Reilly a 4-line poem, and Mr. O sent him a signed copy of his book Pinheads & Patriots. So I wrote him a song. I want a signed copy of Pinheads & Patriots.

Your suits look nice

they complement your shoulders

Sitting behind your desk

have you gotten any older?

Surely all the these pinheads

would make your hair turn gray

but perhaps Dennis Miller

has scoffed that threat away

'cause the spin stops here

and the Factor is lookin out for you

You need have no fear

when O’Reilly is on every weeknight, on Fox News

So I’m spouting off

from anywhere in the world

name & town, name & town, name & town

and the word of the day is “chortled”

‘cause you held your own on The View

and you’re number one in cable news

without you, where would be the Talking Points memo?

caution: you’ve just entered the no-spin zone

rainboots

I took my rainboots for a walk.
I knew that they would never talk to me
the way I wished somebody would,
but as I stood out in the wind & rain I knew
I wouldn't hear them if they could.

I wanted them to see the day,
to present them to the world
& say, "Here we are! my rainboots and I."

Did they know what it felt like to fly
on a swing, grasping cold iron rings in your hands
& leaving your fingers to smell like rust?

Or swap the dust of the diamond
for puddles like lakes of fallen sky
& mud that suctions you to the ground?

Could they hear the thunder, humming
like the strumming of God's bass vocal chords
& resounding promise of His presence?

Did they understand what it meant
that the ice is being sent into the earth
& what worth there is in a tiny crocus bud?

But silly me! they are just rainboots;
their skin is made of rubber flesh
& they cannot soak in a poetic life,
so I did it for them, ad hoc,
and wrote this poem on a walk with my rainboots.

"I suppose that's how it looks in prose. But it's very different if you look at it through poetry...and I think it's nicer...to look at it through poetry." - Anne of Avonlea

prudent microscopes

I came across my writing notebooks from sophomore and junior years. Reading through them made me miss my writing classes, and the things they made me squeeze out of my imagination like paste that doesn't look appealing, but ends up adding a bounty of flavor to the main dish.

I don't know what the prompt was for this poem, but I don't remember writing it a'tall, and it makes me giggle:

(written April 2008)

Back on Uranus,
we eat squirrel.
On earth, they're cute and furry.
I saw a girl
run over a squirrel
with her car
while using my laser vision
to toast my albino squirrel
(the white meat is healthier).
From within closed windows
I heard her scream
and saw the tires
absorb the shock
of the little lifeless body.
She kept driving,
I assume she cried,
and I retrieved
the dead squirrel for dessert.

I usually write much more serious poetry, on my own. But for writing classes I always wrote goofy things, because I was too afraid of criticism. Once I wrote a poem I absolutely loved, and was told I had to change everything about it because of "pathetic fallacy" and "archaic language." Why must there be rules to poetry?

This is the most original version of the poem I could find, having edited it to death to please the masses (aka my writing professor). I wish I still had the original, as it was my favorite. But this one will have to do:

On A February Walk (written February, 2008)

A tree branch creaks a sad, sullen moan,
a lone, tired voice in the midst of a roar.
Blustered and blown, the clouds, thick above
are sick with a gray that drifts down in small pellets
of snow that won't stick to a ground, soggy brown,
so they circle around, in careless, cold dances.

The branches are bare, with not even a coat
of ice that would care, in its unfeeling way,
to lend beauty in bleakness to a sad, creaking tree
that, in its meekness, creaks not to be heard,
but to let out the pain of its old, wooden joints
that burns with cold fire and subsides to rekindle.

Oh, winter, with winds that brutally blow,
lend me some snow in what compassion you own
to coat all that's ugly in a blanket of white
and mute my trite groans, lonely and bitter.
For somehow, to tread upon glistening flakes
makes the walk less despondent to take.

If you want, you can visit the place this poem was written. Just take a jaunt to Wilmore (some of you may already be there) and hop on my favorite college campus. The tree's the big one right in front of the steps of Morrison and, when the leaves aren't there to rustle when the wind blows, you can hear the branches creaking so sadly that the tree deserves a poem written about him. (Yes, poet scholars, I referred to the tree as he.) I listened to it on my way to class and sat on a bench with cold fingers gripping the pencil as I jotted down lines to remember later, when I was warmer and could write more.

I miss being a writer.