NPM 2016: Day 30 {A Shameful Event}

The final day of National Poetry Month has arrived. Thank you all for reading my poems, even if they aren't easily understood or if they seem melodramatic. (Some of them are. Oh well.) While I enjoy sharing my poems with others the process is really an internal, reflective one. It gives me a perspective on myself and the person I have been, the writer I have been, over the last 12 months. Sharing that process with you, whoever you are, takes a great deal of vulnerability. Perhaps in years to come I will explain more. I will describe the context of the poem. I'll tell you who I was then and who I've become and how writing said poem changed me. We'll see.

For now, enjoy the final poem.

A Shameful Event
April 30, 2016

It doesn't matter
that it's happened before,
a perpetual frustration
of artistic endeavor,
a shameful event
that we all somehow
succumb to
in unfocused moments.
But I am resolved.
I have arranged
this sacred space
and settled myself
in the middle
of the chaos,
and no matter what
happened before,
and no matter what
happens next,
I will not
under any circumstance
dip my paintbrush in my tea.

Thirty Thanks, Day 22: The Art in Me

When I was little I used to sit down with a stack of paper or maybe a few coloring books and this big tin of crayons. Yes, a tin of crayons. My favorite color alternated by the hour, depending upon which crayon was sharpest. I would begin to draw and the pictures would just pour out of me--they practically gushed--like a frenzy of uncontrollable, heavenly colors. I would draw picture after picture until they probably piled around me and at the end of the day my mother would have to secretly throw most of them out because she couldn't possibly keep every single one.

This was my element. And it still is. When I am allowed the space and resources for creativity I am almost literally unstoppable. I am never more focused, more exhilarated, or more at peace than when I am making art. It doesn't have to be crayons and paper (like the photo to the left, August '14). It can be a square of polymer clay, or a canvas and some acrylics, a notebook and pen, a piano and some solitude, or even an apple pie.



Below is a project I'm prepping for kindergarten on Monday. Right now they are just tiny canvases with puffy painted words, but soon they will be fabulous Christmas ornaments. There's paint and sequins involved. Really.

And here's a sneak peak of this year's Christmas cards. The process has just begun.

The point is, art has always--and I mean always--been part of my identity. It wasn't until a few years ago that I began to realize how spiritual art is for me, how it grounds me and connects me. There's an old Jars of Clay song called "Art in Me," in which the speaker begs someone to "see the art in me." I've resonated with that on many levels, and it's that phrase which helps my understanding of my own art. I am so thankful for my own creativity--for the art in me. 

I'm thankful for what art gives me--peace when I am restless, resolution when I am aimless, clarity when I am overwhelmed, distraction when I'm anxious, joy when I'm in sorrow, and tenderness when I'm in rage. I'm thankful for how it allows me to connect with others, either by sharing my art with them or partaking in another's art. I'm thankful for the colors and sounds and textures I can be surrounded by. I'm thankful that my parents encouraged my artistic nature when I was young, even when I resisted. (I still resist taking art classes--I don't like being told what to do.) But most of all I'm thankful for the spiritual element of the art in me, the way it engages me with God in ways that cannot be explained or otherwise experienced. By creating, I connect with my Creator.

Thanks, art. You're incredible.

NPM: At home.

4/20/14
Carry Me Up

When the storm overcomes me,
when with the wind I bend,
when lightning strikes my heart
and thunder is my friend
carry me up,
carry me up to you.

When the stillness is too much,
when the silence is at hand,
when my patience won't persist
and I feel I cannot stand
carry me up,
carry me up to you.

When my soul is heavy,
when my spirit stops its sighs,
when my heart gives way
and that drumbeat dies
carry me up,
carry me up to you.


4/21/14
Teababy

Teababies drink tea
where they're wandering at
in the morning dew
with wide white hats.
Teababies drink tea
when the sun comes up
and they sip up their hours
from chippy coffee cups.
They drink with straws
from tiny paper glasses
and from shiny bottles
sittin in the tall grasses.
Teababies drink tea
when the moon hangs down
and they gulp from the sky
when stars come around.
They drink away trouble
and drink away care
because a teababy knows
all the world some tea can bear.


4/22/14
Big Paper

For an artist the blank page can seem
quite in surmountable, untouchable.
The empty white sheet is both
power and weakness.
It is the whole day looming ahead,
all work and responsibility and
convoluted obligations,
or the trouble to be made--
which could be daunting, or exhilarating
but I am dauntless, and always
in the middle of an exhilaration.
And you can cut it up into small pieces
or paint the entire sheet
with one color, if that pleases you,
and I suppose that's where
an artist gets satisfaction.
God gives out the big paper
but he also hands you the brush.