Thirteen Ways of Looking At Memory

NaPoWriMo 2019 – Day 30

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Memory

I
Stone border wall keeping one
from entering dreamed of place
called Freedom.

II
Being constantly locked into
space of exhausting
repetition.

III
Grains of sand
that linger long
after leaving the beach.

IV
Becoming only an
irritant in need
of being brushed away.

V
An echo bouncing off
mountain of buried
emotions.

VI
Ghostly apparitions
come to shatter peace
of present moments.

VII
Dark shadows that swallow
dreams of a distant
but different future.

VIII
A light switch
mounted on wall
of remembering.

IX
Poem, like a star, dancing in darkness
waiting for someone to look up
to see.

X
Greening path of footprints
offering steps toward growth
and healing.

XI
A chance to redo
what has already
been done.

XII
More than fleeting probability
to smash bricks in stone wall
encasing Freedom

XIII
Opportunity to live, to breathe
inside wider place
of grace long promised.

Elizabeth Crawford 4/30/2019

Process Notes: This one has been slowly building itself for about two weeks, as I noticed that most of the poems I’ve written this month are about, or based in memory.  And during those daily writings, the phone rings at least once and I always wonder if it is the woman who calls me occasionally to share a Bible verse with me, seemingly forgetting that I told her the first time that I studied the Bible, long ago, taught adult Bible Study classes, and view it very differently than she does. I believe that the Artists, especially the writers of any generation share the same energy as the prophets of old.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in her book, “Women Who Run With the Wolves”, tells us that ‘nothing is ever lost from the human psyche’. Think about that for a moment. Our skin holds all that gives us life, and also each moment that we have lived. In this present moment we are the culmination of all of those moments. They hold both purpose and meaning. When we work to heal past moments of wounding, we are freeing our future moments for something better than what came before. Creating that wider place in which to exist.

The image is a photograph taken in my niece’s backyard, then put through the kaleidoscope app. It has long been one of my favorites because the boulders in the original photo, became stone birds flying in the four sacred directions. Creating that wider place in which to breathe, to live.