Monday, February 25, 2008

Song of Myself (under construction)

Song of Myself

Once upon a time, I
was a child beneath beneath a forsythia bush. The flowers were small and yellow
and the branches thin. I crawled inside, the dirt was black
and sweet-smelling.
There was only me,
and the sky peeking watery blue through the branches and
the early spring forsythia all around.

I am a girl of many shades,
I am one of fiery temper and fierce joy, I am one of sleepy indifference.

Is a person defined by their possessions?
I am well read books and loved photographs, I am big plastic earrings and many, many shoes. I am bright dresses and sweet perfume, pillows and pens and a handful of thumbtacks.

Is a person defined by what they love most?
I am a far-flung family, a handful of beautiful girls, a tabby cat, I am a mother, a father, a brother, a boy or two, I am sunlight and chocolate and laughter and thick green grass.

Is a person defined by what moves them?
I am a pair of eyes, an open ocean, I am the 1812 overture and the word Hallelujah, I am an eclipse in a vast night sky, I am words and photographs and the smell of Paella and of fir trees.

Is a person defined by their religion?
I believe in my family gathered around a candlelit dinner table,
I believe in love and joy and in full self-expression.
I believe in the power of laughing and of crying, and of the smiles of children.
I believe that if we give freely of ourselves and keep open hearts we will change the world one day.
I believe in the possibility of peace, I believe that life is one great and endless possibility.

Is a person defined by their past?
I once cried over an episode of “Sex and the City”.
I once spent an entire day lying in the sun on my back porch.
I once baked a triple layer cake.
I used to believe that little men on swivel chairs lived in traffic lights
I once was knocked out of a sailboat by its boom,
I once smashed a coconut open on the street.

I fully intend to surprise you.

I aim to live big and with enthusiasm, love hard and fall fast,
to rise far and dive deep.
I want to speak ten languages,
I want to eat spicy strange foods in tropical places,
I want to fall in love in Italy and deep-sea dive in New Zealand,
I want to open a restaurant in Switzerland, I want to climb Kilimanjaro and parachute over the Himalayas.

I kick my feet out when I run, my nose is big and my ears asymmetrical.
My taste in music is broad and often not exactly cultured or mature.
There are stuffed animals in my room
I write poems, I am excited by airline food and automatic doors.
I am a sap, a gooey person, I fall head over heels for clichés.
I play sports badly and with great enthusiasm
I can quote Lord of the Rings and Star Wars,
I am fond of Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson,
I sing very loudly and very badly and with real emotion.

I can say “happiness comes in small packages” with a straight face because it is the truth.

I love my bed. I like comfort and warmth, I like to lie with another person at my back, I like arms around me.
I crave chocolate in any form.
I crave excitement and I crave sleepy sunlit mornings.
I like dancing, I like screaming song lyrics into the night,
I am happiest on summer nights swimming in the smooth water,
running wet down the dock, rolling in the sand,
warming my face by an open fire.
I am happiest stretched like a cat in the sun,
I am happiest in the quiet comfort of a friend

I like running fast, I like jell-o in individual cups,
I used to lie underneath the dining room table for hours
looking up at the grain of the wood.

How to live a life, how to define a life lived, how to explain the process of living?

Once upon a time I buried a garden snake in the back yard,
a full funeral with an inscribed headstone,
I cried over his broken green body
and placed earth and flowers over it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

this is incredible.
i want this.
all of it.