Three Poems
Days 308, 309, and 310 of my project One More Word.
Transmuting Beauty
Nothing would have bothered being beautiful
if there were no artist to come and translate
that beauty into a new medium,
painting landscapes, sculpting faces,
humming music, telling stories.
Nothing would have to hurt
if there were not so much
healing and growth following the pain,
if your muscles never grew any stronger,
if your psyche never gained any resilience,
or if you didn’t yank your hand away
from the hot stove
Nothing would be at all,
well, if it weren’t for all this junk
that seems to keep arriving here
from nothing.
The observer effect,
I think physicists call it,
but I’m no physicist,
I’m just a guy who arranges words.
And who am I to say there would be no beauty
if there was no one to recognize beauty?
How self centered a notion.
Who am I to say that the flowers are beautiful
just for us?
I can actually assume that they are not.
The flower’s beauty
must have
some sort of evolutionary function.
I wouldn’t know,
but maybe attracting more bees
to get more pollen out into the world,
something that makes sense like that.
But the beauty in itself,
beauty as a noun,
needs to be absorbed,
recognized, or appreciated.
Maybe I’m not using the right verb,
but that’s my view anyway.
Or is a spruce tree,
all alone in the woods,
beautiful on its own?
Or a mushroom in a cave,
never to be seen by man?
That must be beautiful too, right?
I don’t know,
I’m in the weeds on this one.
I think it’s all interconnected.
We know beauty when we see it.
Some are good at recognizing and translating it.
Some have beauty in their fingertips
and the back of their minds.
they can recognize it,
they can capture it,
preserve it,
and tell others
that it’s out there.
— 308 Words.
You Are Ancient History
Behave as though your actions are history,
because they already are.
Your thousand years have quickly passed,
you’ve left your mark with every word and action.
Realize how quickly the ending usually comes.
Remember that long hike you went on five years ago?
Remember struggling with how long it seemed to be taking
to get to the summit?
Remember thinking you must be close
but you still had hours left to go?
Now that hike is a memory,
the view from the summit a memory,
the hike back down a memory,
the struggle is all gone.
So see yourself for what you’ll be,
which is gone.
Some find this to be a terrifying thought,
but it is a useful perspective.
What will be your own memory of yourself in fifty years?
Will you try to carve your name out in history,
or do you not care about such things?
If your lifetime went by in a crack of lightning,
if it were one panoramic canvas painting,
if it were a VHS tape sitting on a dusty shelf
waiting to be rewound,
what is that sum total?
Don’t freak out.
Just think about the weight of your days.
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Carve your name in a stump,
or find some wet concrete
that is unattended by the construction workers,
or buy a chisel and go find some granite,
whatever your proclivity for leaving your mark.
Know that if you do that tomorrow,
a thousand years have already passed.
Know that the friendships you make
are for a lifetime,
that you might go twenty years without seeing your friend
but then you bump into them,
and you have all those years to talk about.
Know that conversation is now,
you’re going on all the adventures
that you already can’t wait to tell them.
Behave as though your actions are history,
because they already are.
— 309 Words.
Give Up On Your Dream, Kid.
My coworker said,
“I used to have dreams too.”
as we locked up the dumpster,
and that broke my heart,
but she seemed totally content
while she was saying it.
Honestly,
it felt a little bit like a judgment on me,
the type of judgment you get from people
who don’t think you’re going to make it,
but maybe that’s my insecurity.
But they always say it like I’m a fool for dreaming,
for wanting something bigger.
Like dreaming is a young man’s game.
Like they know more,
having given up a dream.
And I’m sure that isn’t actually what she meant by it,
just the harsh truth that some dreams don’t work out.
But my dream feels like one
that I could hang onto into my seventies,
so I wonder what hers was
that she decided to give it up
rather than hang onto it until she was ancient.
I hear a lot about burn out,
running out of steam,
becoming discouraged.
Sometimes it feels like
people are advising me against trying
when they talk about these harsh truths.
Like I might as well quit
before I find out how difficult it really is,
how unlikely a lucky break is,
like they’re warning me,
telling me my life is going to be hard.
I don’t understand it.
My life would be significantly worse
without my wild hopes.
I couldn’t imagine giving up on asking,
“what if?”
To me, “what if?” isn’t compatible
with “probably not.”
“What if?” isn’t about probabilities
or likelihoods.
“What if?” is attached to a dream
somewhere down in your cardiovascular system,
and every time your heart beats
it sends blood up to your brain
to keep asking that question,
“what if?” .. “what if?” .. “what if?”
As long as that question
is steadily being asked,
one day the answer will just be
“it is.”
— 310 Words.
These pieces are from days 308, 309 and 310, of 500. I am increasing my wordcount by one, every single day, for 500 days. I’m calling this project, One More Word.
It is much easier for me to write and edit separately, so I might be uploading more of these multi-day posts.
The writing for this project is a daily process, which is intended to make me a more diligent and creative writer. The typing/editing can be a bit more time consuming, because I hand write all these pieces first. Either way, the writing is getting done :)
As the wordcount increases, I might switch to offline and upload more sporadically. But so far daily posts, or singular posts with multiple days, has been working for me. I hope it is still enjoyable to read.
For anyone who has been following along daily, thank you!
I am still going!
Thank you for reading :)
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