Apprenticed to Poetry: Part Three

(This is part three of the "Apprenticed to Poetry" posts. If you missed the others, you can read part one here and part two here.)

How will we make a living while we are still apprentices to our passion? Who can help us learn, be the mentor or master tradesman that sets the example? What will we do with the children while we practice our art or our writing or our music? Understandable fears block our way. If we get some gestalt on the picture of our lives, however, we may very well see that we are more afraid of ignoring what calls us, than of giving into the call. We have been graced with the gift of life and blessed with certain talents. We are wasting some of the finest parts of this gift when we consistently tell it no. This denial can lead to depression and despair, even if its expression is oh-so-quiet that nobody knows. We suffer though, and we are aware that we do.

I believe we are here to shine. No, we may not get to American Idol, win the Noble Prize or a Grammy or even an Emmy. We most likely will not grasp Oscar and take him home. But that’s not why we choose creativity. What’s important is the choice that carries meaning in its craw. It’s the choice that gives our lives purpose and a new found happiness.

We make these kind of choices every day, and every day we are alive, we are given the chance to begin again, to choose differently this time. Each time we choose real life over TV, to cook a new dish rather than eat at McDonald’s, to write a poem rather than write on face book, we are empowering ourselves and those around us. We are taking a step in the direction that creates life rather than denies it. We are choosing to make a difference, to go against the grain of commonality and have a life that is sincere and authentic. There is no better feeling, unless it is influencing someone else to make an authentic choice for themselves.

We have the power to change our lives from mundane to challenging. We have a calling, each of us, and we are lucky enough to know it. That doesn’t mean we have to heed it, though. You are free, as I was, to stay in the least satisfying and most dangerous job in the world because I was more afraid to pick up a pen; to learn that, behold, the pen IS mightier than the sword. Any job that is crazy-making or even boring can kill the human spirit. We are meant for joy. And a joyful person is a peaceful person. A fulfilled person brings meaning to the lives of those they touch. Even if a creative commitment is your avocation and not your vocation, you can find the time to include it in your everyday life. Dedication and persistence for 30 minutes a day can change you in ways you never thought possible. Like the moon, we begin to reflect our lives outward so that it is shared and becomes a light by which both you and others can travel when it’s dark. It’s only scary for awhile and it is so worth the risk.

So give yourself, say thirty minutes this very day, to sit alone quietly and remember what it was you always wanted to do before you got that business degree, before you had a family, before you let go of the dream. Then figure out a way to revive that “dream deferred,” choosing now, to begin again.

Before You Jump

by Mendy Knott

She stands firm in a big old Birch.
Its limbs stretch over the same length of river
her granddad swam when he was just a kid.
She is just a kid herself,
rangy as a boy; thick brown hair
pulled into a ponytail shows off her pixie features,
the brown shells of her ears.
Her face gazes at something no one else can see,
some future far away as college
or closer than the swirling water
flowing past beneath.
She waits for her courage to catch up
to how fast she can climb,
stand alone,
take hold of the rope.
Breathless, she considers how her feet
will leave the sureness of the branch and then...
What happens next?
She can only guess.
There are so many firsts for a girl
green as the leaves which frame her
and she will not be rushed.
No “Ready-set-go!” or “Jump!”
will make her leave her perch.
This girl knows her mind.
What happens next?
We are left to guess.

Thoughts zip past like swallows dip and dive
touch the water, fly.
She is not a swallow, though.
Flight depends on courage, heart,
her willingness to risk
adventure.
Shoulders arch wings aching to be tried.
The thin brown feet shift.
What she can’t yet know, she can anticipate:
rush of wind, the muddy water taste,
mouth full of sunshine as she swings
from beneath the canopy of leaves,
body suspended in mid-air when she lets go
as the rope releases her from all she’s ever known.
Momentum, once begun,
will take us somewhere;
of this we can be sure.

Flight, with all its fear and fascination,
will only be first once.
What she appears to know right now
(how quickly we forget)
is not to rush the moment, let it linger.
Stand a moment in that place where you’re familiar
with the feel of everything.
Appreciate your apprehension.
Realize you’ll never be the same.
Know with every act we’re changed.

Then my girl, let fly and take it in:
all the highs and lows
the swing the fall
the grace that lands us on our feet
or sinks us deep in Mystery
the breath that brings us back
the Self that, if we let it, always rises up to meet
both our victories and defeats.

Remind us how time passes fast
and how much more we need to be
open and alive as this young girl
poised in the widespread arms of a tree,
life flowing past beneath our feet.

—Mendy Knott is a writer, poet and author of the poetry collection A Little Lazarus (Half Acre Press, 2010). To order your copy of A Little Lazarus directly from the author, please click here. Or, if cookbooks are more your style, get a copy of Mendy's family cookbook Across the Arklatex at www.twopoets.us.