June 23, 2013

1068. You were on a porch

either sitting hunched over your legs,
or you were lying on your side,
watching the volleyball game.

I could not take my eyes away from being aware you were there.
You were intensely handsome to see, but further, you were unique,
not loud at all, but strong, reserved.

Are you strong? I know you are
strong enough to see the truth about your life, and know
the truth of your abilities to continue

in circumstances opposed
to you, you made arrangements to leave your reputation for a time,
to get your life into a place you needed to go.

You are strong.
Seeing you on the porch years ago, I knew.
I did not know that I was not strong.

I was adaptable and attempted to be as strong
as my parents were active. I learned to choose a path
and take it without much thought.

I have
made myself
absent in

choosing
that
way


This is not poetry, only lines of thought for this number, observed.

Posted by nancy at June 23, 2013 05:47 PM
Comments
Thank you, Jay. Until that time I feel alien, marked, utterly failed. I am tired. And so old in slow. Actually, I feel incapable of rising. Predictable. I would like a dog. Thankful that the jello turned out for dessert. Wasn't it good after three hours? Posted by: Nancy at June 23, 2013 10:22 PM
Point taken. Still, it seems poetic prose to me. Would that I were without vanity as well; how well I know vanity's bauble. Rise you shall, I am certain, and have seen you stand firm and not back away before. Yes: train, learn, and lean on nothing but God only. I see your strong faith, your strength. You will find the place He has set forth for you. Posted by: Jay Bopp at June 23, 2013 10:14 PM
It is not at all difficult to see—that is why it is not entirely poetry. References to high school and ignorance and being so far away from who I would want my character to be—strong, not simply adaptable. I am no "May" or "Queen Mary". My opinions and remembrances are garish to so many people I have met, who might have liked me were my disposition truly modest. I have slipped and scrapped and backed away so often from the high road, the noble ways of training discipline into my emotional being. I wish I were without vanity, to be wholly aware of honest ways; not ever keeping absence to hide my hesitance, stubbornness, and knowledge that I have not risen to anything, not anything at all. If I could remain a Mother only, then that role completely satisfies. But I know my failures in other areas. Late, I will train, learn and not lean, and participate as a day or week gives opportunity to serve. You know, Jay, I have been coddled, and the various frailties in my body or mind are still attached to a strong faith that rises in me to seek until I find some useful place for being. Posted by: Nancy at June 23, 2013 10:04 PM
I think it is poetry. Lines of thought, yes. But you cannot speak or write without poetry being the beautiful result. This is eloquent. And I think I understand. Posted by: Jay Bopp at June 23, 2013 09:44 PM
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