This week's Random Acts of Poetry challenge at the High Calling Blogs is to write to the prompt "The Real _________". Following is my contribution to the RAPfest.
The Real Me
The real me was used to speaking
only when she had some thing to say.
The real me knew to stop talking
when her girl's opinion didn't count for beans.
The real me learned to put her hand down
and become one with the space around her.
The real me pushed deep a secret
a little too well.
She burned out in '97
when truth came to light.
The loving part got stuck.
The real me was born to make words matter.
Words, once turned out, held in air
the way moon's shine pierced spider's web.
Words caused her heart to lose momentum.
Let her in on stories everyone imagined
made up for what was missing. Soaked up
the tears left best behind closed eyes.
The real me was raised up with no religion
and a powerful need for faith.
She got to sample whatever her friends followed.
Mostly, they were Catholics, sometimes
Methodists, never Baptists, certainly not
Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, anything strange.
A few times, she went to Temple. Of Islam
she never heard mention. Not till she left home.
The real me stood in pews without a clue,
then got to decide which rituals she'd make.
She was baptized at 50 and started over,
this time Episcopal —
and close to a Catholic who turned, too.
The real me stood at the altar in a flood
of her own making and received the bishop's hand
— a man's hand that put her own in God's
without a second thought.
The real me still gets second thoughts
trying to strip away the real from the me
to find an eye that sees inside
what long ago got tamped.
The real me
stopped looking
keeps looking
is looking
looks
for
God.
Sometimes.
Still.
Copyright 2009 Maureen E. Doallas. All Rights Reserved.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
Maureen -- this is almost hurtfully good, hurtfully honest.
Silenced. And honored.... to be here at the feet of the real you.
i think we must keep looking for God, that God will show us the way. yet, i think that we must look with our heart because our mind and our understanding does not not get it.
looking with the heart is faith and hope which goes beyond just me and makes it me and God. it brings me into walking in the Love of God.
Maureen, this is incredible -- and SO in tune with what I've been thinking and hearing these last few days. Amazing. Thank you.
Post a Comment