Sitting outside on my front step after a short stroll in the dark, enjoying the delicious smell of burning matches and lazy, folk-pop tunes much to the rhythm that represents this country - free, at a comfortable pace. It's hard to believe that other's worlds aren't as quiet as mine tonight. It was only yesterday that I had, in my dismay and frustration, spat fiery words into a stack of blog drafts only to be left incomplete and distracted with exceptional Q&A content. (Something I enjoy as much as I like to jab matches vertically into a hard surface to watch the burnt pieces crumble - makes me sound a little vicious, no?) One poet had it right when he wrote - "Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence" (Robert Frost). Pardon that I'm not in an elaborating mood. Let's appreciate and move on. Poetry has been a lot more on my mind recently - I've always found there to be a disconnect in my ability to read a poem and comprehend as much as I would like to. Perhaps it was the broken lines or how things rhyme (appreciate what I did there?), words with too many syllables and condensation - an expression I've never been akin to, but I've found my space; slam poetry. I had come across a stray video here and there but nothing that had ever struck me, poisoned or possessed me the need to chase such a thing. But as with all things, the exception glanced straight at me and led me - Andrea Gibson's expression and talent is shattering, and shatters me with only bare minutes that manage to cry books worth of importance. I cry as though I have been drinking tears all my life - she has the ability to stir an emotional chaos in anyone who is in the presence of her poetry. Her sheer unapologetic fierceness is unfailing. And did I even mention she used to work as a preschool teacher? No words.
Swingset.
One of her milder poems but one that means so much to me.
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