Pointing

Pointing by debgrant

It was one of those life-changing comments that shook me, clung to me, and buried me under a pile of unknown biological substances from which I must regularly crawl from and take a shower.

“Oh, Deb, there you go navel-gazing again.”

Reflecting on the purpose and productivity level of one’s existence is a luxury and an activity that collects lint and body fluids like the aforementioned belly button.

I am a poet. Not a famous one. When I pondered that - the not being famous part - for too long, the depth of the scar from losing the cable from the mother ship grows by fathoms.

And then I remembered my theatre classes. Sometimes the most important activity on the stage as an actor is not drawing attention to yourself but pointing to the actor worthy of your time. I spent a career as a preacher pointing to important stuff. I am learning being a poet is much the same. A little less navel-gazing and a lot more pointing is perhaps what I am still called to do.

So enough navel-gazing.

I thought of a poem this morning by Amy Lowell. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry after she died. For the first time since memorizing it when I was rummaging around in my teenage belly button, the poem sounded more like a prayer or a psalm for this time. I thought it was worth pointing to today. What do you think?

Amy Lowell (1874-1925)

To a Friend

I ask but one thing of you, only one,

That always you will be my dream of you;

That never shall I wake to find untrue

All this I have believed and rested on,

Forever vanished, like a vision gone

Out into the night. Alas, how few

There are who strike in us a chord we knew

Existed, but so seldom heard its tone

We tremble at the half-forgotten sound.

The world is full of rude awakenings

And heaven-born castles shattered to the ground,

Yet still our human longing vainly clings

To a belief in beauty through all wrongs.

O stay your hand, and leave my heart its songs!

Peace,

Deb