Day 9: For the dreamers

Day 9 of my 30 days of poetry (why did I do this again?).

This is a little bit of a cheat...part of this poem is from a poem I wrote a long time ago that I never liked.  I like this version of it a little bit better.  Also: it's been a day, and I wasn't able to come up with something entirely original tonight.   Also, the sermon at church on Sunday was on wishes and dreams, and it's been on my mind to write something on that topic...and the pieces of the old poem fit.  

For the dreamers

I want to write the poem heard round the world.

The poem would reverberate in your cells

resound in the densest of forests

create oxygen in the highest altitudes and

shiver the souls of imperfect strangers reaching to one another

willing a fullness that never comes,

creating a hunger only spirit-seekers can know, but I

am not a poet.

Not a real one.

My words fall short of cell reverberation and shiver creation

imperfect strangers turn to me,

but tonight, I tell them,

I write this poem

for me.

I think poems are lists of word gifts.

They are wonderous pictures of letter creations -

I will creation to wash over me:

beg it to comfort me like Grandmother's laugh,

reach for words to fill the emptiness,

strive for gentle mooring on literary shores,

but my thoughts pin down words with lightning strikes.

I hold the noose around my dreams,

tie them tight and lose the key,

hold my breath and try to breathe,

I measure courage with a two-foot yard stick and call it a dream.

I bring myself over

and over to this life

like living

must be another kind of wishing

and dreaming

is just the only way we find to breathe.

I want to write the poem heard round the world.

the poem that would shake me to my core

resound the depths of my soul,

crack my silence like the breaking of dawn,

bring me to my knees and

raise me to my feet

the vastness of my future

measured with a 500-foot yard stick

brings me visions of my 100-year old self

aching with love

for all I am and will become:

my greatest fear

is of what will come true.

If you end this

beautiful,

hoping,

knowing

afraid,

then this poem is also

for you.