"I celebrate & sing myself"

“I celebrate & sing myself”

(a poem inspired by Walt Whitman)

I sing myself in words that fill my life

                Words that share myself with yours

                              that share my heart with yours

                              that share my eyes with your imaginings

But I am ever blind, then see—

                again, again I learn again

                stories

                (and dreams)

                of who I am again.

Somedays I am the scholar, with unquenching thirst for knowledge and numbers

                (blind to feelings or practicality)

Somedays I am the homemaker, with aromas (paprika and pinesol)

                pervasive along with ordered chaos

Yet other days I am the sloth, with chocolate, popcorn, and tactile-glee

                (blind by shutting out the daily pressures on myself)

But most of all, on most of days

                I’m merely just the rolling tide of

                emotion, feeling, empathy, misery

                that I embrace with emerald pools for eyes.

                I share myself with you and take your share of you

                because only in our life together

                (with God & nature and water & things)

                does life mean anything in song

                               

Elizabeth Gay

1.11.2012

910am

Rethinking Genre

     When I was a kid, we didn't have padding under our jungle gyms. We had rocks.
     We didn't have safety belts on our swing sets. The whole goal was to get as high as you could, then launch yourself into the stratosphere.
     We rode our bikes without helmets. Without shoes. Sometimes without clothes.