Lovely

Isn't he lovely,

soft at the temples

but rough jaw, lip, and chin.

Gentle hands that hold children

the same hands

that lift bricks

and pull ropes,

building buildings,

moving rubble,

sailing ships.

Hands as strong as the voice

that he quiets to listen

and to whisper small words

that feel bigger than

hands,

bodies, buildings,

and ships

Isn't he lovely
who once was a boy,
nursing and then crawling,
soon running and falling,
losing teeth,
making wishes
boosted up to candles.
He learns to use hands
and words that are gentle
with his kickball bruised sneakers
and his school box of pencils
that curious quick turn into pens
and his sneakers to slacks.
Then they cuts his boy hair,
and his face turns to man.

But he still has his bikes,
and he likes to act silly,
enjoys being held
like his mother once held him.
Eyes mirror the heart,
and when he smiles,
his eyes show the boy he once was
hidden inside.
It's not on his face or his glue-stickied fingers
but in the way that he says,
"One more kiss"
and then lingers -

And lovely describes him
because it captures it all
the softness he possesses
Although he is strong.
The strongest man is the one
who is more than his gender
who is lovely and grotesque,
vulnerable and full of power.
Whose arm can be under the arm
of his other
and who knows that he's lovely
because he isn't bothered
by gender.

Young

Just when you think you're getting somewhere in the way of maturity,

a creased and creased again forehead

that raised mounted eyebrows to accompany a laugh

or gasp at the pinnacle point of a movie,

to greet a passing friend,

a passing stranger,

reminds you that 19, no 18

when skin still resists its familiar folds

is young.

Just when you think you've learned enough to be considered an adult,

a set of five fingers, a warm and worn hand

that, pudgy, wrapped around a parent's fingers once,

that learned to comfort

as it nervously found a place on a shoulder 

where it squeezed,

warmed the skin of a friend,

the skin of a stranger,

reminds you that your 21, 19, no 18 

year old hands

are still young.

When the things that await you 

like hands that know where to sit on a shoulder

and eyebrows that know where to sit on a forehead

make the present seem like a glimpse of the someday future's past

just then

you are young.

Wonder on My Words

Where do words come from?
I wonder -
will they cease to come
one day?

Like a measured hollow vessel
shaped from clay
do words pour from the lip
until the flow strains to a drip
and drips to drops
until it stops
the words dried up -
I wonder.

Wonder on My Heart

Is doing ever done?
I wonder -
will I ever breathe the final breath
of accomplishment?

Like a marked and measured trail
through town
does doing wind and bend
until the trail comes to an end
and end to stop
legs rest from body's heavy top -

Or is doing like a heart
that beats and beats
and never stops
from before birth
to final breath,
the heart is never given rest.

Assigned to beat
caged in a chest
and never rest
unless in death -

Is not this constancy in our
best interest? -
I wonder

Chikamatsu Mon'zaemon

"Some playwrights, thinking that sadness is essential to a jōruri, often put in words like 'How sad it is!' or the lines are chanted tearfully, as in the Bunyabushi style, but that is not how I write plays. The sadness in all my plays is based entirely on reason. Since the audience will be moved when the logic of the dramatization is convincing, the more restrained the words and the chanting are, the more moving the play will be. Thus, when one says of a moment of pathos 'How sad it is!' the connotations are lost, and in the end, the feeling conveyed is weak. It is essential that the moment be filled with pathos in and of itself, without having to say 'How sad it is!' For example, when you praise a landscape such as Matsushima by saying 'Oh what a beautiful scene!' you have said all you can about it in a few words but to no avail. If you wish to praise a scene, pointing out all its features objectively will reveal its intrinsic appeal naturally, without having to say 'it is a beautiful scene.' This applies to everything of this sort."

-Chikamatsu Mon'zaemon-

Virginia Morning

Good morning -
sweet birds I love-
hear me your sun rising song.
Morning's breath fill your lungs,
your chest cause to swell 
as you turn morning air
into song

Good morning,
pink rose in the sun,
my eyes your bright body attract.
Morning's fragrance you make
that my nostril's inflame
with the scent of your
sun-baked perfume


Good morning -
sun, giving light
what reunion is this
after absence in night.
Welcome, your embrace
earth's arms open wide
to the light that you give
and that gives morning
life.

A Picture of Thursday Afternoon in My Room

I read a book by Anne Lamott this year titled Bird by Bird; it was her account of what it means and what it takes to be a writer. Today during my Transitions class, a one credit course required for all first year students, we were given an overview of the library resources. While introducing the writing support center, Vi Dutcher, the director of EMU’s writing program, paraphrased a part of Anne Lamott's book. I remembered the passage. It was one of my favorite parts of the book, partly because it gave me so much hope about writing and partly because Anne and I have a similar sense of humor. The direct quote is:

            "I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can

 even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said that you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.)"

I hurried back to my dorm room after class to find that quote. After chuckling and enjoying the creative wit of a woman I don't know, I remembered something else that Anne said in her book. When you sit down to write, it can feel overwhelming. You have a million ideas or no ideas at all; there's nowhere to start and no end in sight, and you’re paralyzed by the fear that you won’t write anything good or worse, you’ll write something absolutely terrible. Anne's advice was to try capturing moments, small snapshots of life at a time. Make a frame with your fingers, hold it out in front of you, describe what you see within the boundaries of that frame, and then grow from there. 

I've been meaning to write something insightful, funny, or witty to publish in The Tribune for a couple of months now, but I couldn’t find the courage or the will power to sit myself down and write until Vi Dutcher pulled Anne Lamott back out of obscurity where I’d been hiding her. I remembered the élan that I had written with in the weeks after I had finished her book, and I realized that sitting around, waiting for inspiration or confidence leads to more waiting and no writing. So I took myself by the shoulders, looked straight into my right eyeball (because if you think about it, you can only ever make eye contact with one eye at a time.), and I told myself that I could do it again. I could make something worth reading.

So I’m starting with snapshots, easing myself back into writing, and taking the time to look, listen, and learn about my new world here at college. I’ve always been very intentional about documenting my life, starting with my pink kitten covered diary from elementary school where I wrote detailed accounts of all the best playground drama in pink sparkly jell pen. These written memories are my most treasured possessions. I routinely pull out my past journals and find stories about people I had forgotten or moments of insight that seem beyond my age. Journaling allows me to save pieces of my past selves and revisit them whenever I please.

Today’s snapshot comes from my dorm room where I am currently working. I’m sitting at my desk; it is wooden, pine I think, stained a golden honey color and decorated with dents, scrapes, and chips from previous semesters. I have a tape dispenser, a stapler, and a small bottle of hand sanitizer sitting to the right of my keyboard. A Band-Aid tin full of pens, markers, pencils, and one pair of purple scissors is standing behind them. To the left of my computers is a desk lamp painted a tropical shade of blue, and fixed to the base is a medium sized pile of Post-it notes pile. The squares change color as the pile gets higher, from blue to purple to pink to orange to yellow. A pocket sized notepad; a sketch book, not much bigger and lonely for use; and a brand new journal that I bought on sale at Borders, are stacked beside the lamp. Binders and folders that I have yet to find a use for are propped up against the shelf that rises over the far end of the desk, holding a few picture frames and the necessaries for tea. A black speaker with the brand name, CREATIVE functions as a makeshift bookend for the binders as well as a paperweight for a sheet of forty-two cent stamps that I purchased at the campus post office. 


I’m not particularly preoccupied with material possessions, and I believe that it is character that defines a person, not the things that they own. But I do think that the contents of a person’s pockets, the arrangement of their room, or the things they keep on their desk say a lot about them. So as I wonder about who I am and who I want to be, I look at the objects that I’ve placed on my desk. I try to listen to what they might be saying, but all I hear is Brittney singing along to Carrie Underwood across the hall and someone sneezing in the lounge, the breeze making the loose and lightweight objects in my room twitch as it comes in my window and the door to the staircase opening and closing. I look up at my shelf to find not an answer itself, but a way to the answer I’m searching for, a mug with the words, “call your mother” in block letters across the front.