Still Small Voice
For We Write Poems prompt #27 write a healing poem
http://wewritepoems.wordpress.com/
Still Small Voice
I have always been here.
When sadness lapped shore
where you chose to abide,
I was there.
When pain was so intense,
became a fence, you could not climb,
I was there.
When fear made you crawl, curl
behind whatever wall you could find,
I was there.
When lonely and alone was only
thing you knew,
I was there.
When frenzy of frustration felt like
failure and wilted your energies,
I was there.
When life seemed only for
the dying,
I was there.
When hope was broken
in shattered dreams,
I was there.
I was there, inside
and all around you.
I am your soul,
know all of your boundaries.
Have walked them each day,
tended to whatever was broken,
couldn’t be spoken,
needed tending, tender mending,
I was there,
bending myself to shelter you,
in midst of all that might harm,
might hurt you.
And I am still here,
still breathing.
Elizabeth Crawford 11/9/10
- Posted in: Still Small Voice
- Tagged: healing poem, poetry prompt, Soul Voice, We Write Poems
Ladies In Waiting 
Elizabeth,
This is so beautiful. I concept we should all know about ourselves.
Pamela
“A” not “I”
Pamela, I believe our soul is our link to the Eternal and whatever concept of the Divine we might hold, or even toss around. I walked around for years, knowing there were holes in my soul, so these words comfort me. Thanks for finding beauty here,
Elizabeth
This is so incredibly beautiful and healing, Elizabeth. It is nice to picture this constant inner friend. The poem gives me a feeling of peacefulness. I think this is a poem to read on a regular basis, and it cannot help but rise ones spirits. I wrote one too but made the decision not to link it, though it can be found.
I did find it and you should have linked it. Not every piece we write can be happy and full of light. I think your piece is very human. Thanks for visiting and for your very generous words,
Elizabeth
Your first line and mine have echoes but you are the source of your own solace rather than ‘my’ apostles, although I suppose we may project that healing presence onto many entities. Your poem is lovely.
Derrick, I like your apostles but they were as human as you and I. And, ever since JC Superstar, I can never think about them without that silly song running through my head. And I agree, we do project healing presence onto others. I once knew a Catholic nun, who would talk to me and no matter what she said, I would walk away calmer and more at peace than before. I called her a healer, and was shocked when she called me the same.
Elizabeth
Interesting about the nun, Elizabeth. I knew such a “healer” nun too. Didn’t at first KNOW she was a nun when I met her at UW-Madison grad school, then saw her off and on for a number of years. When she spoke, she was like the Pied Piper. Her voice, her words, her presence was unlike that of anyone else I have ever known.
You have chosen some very comforting words.
Thank you Marian, I found comfort in your poem about those left behind to pick up the pieces and move back toward life after someone passes.
Elizabeth
I really related to this…I can hear my soul whispering the same words to me. So, beautiful and moving is this piece…thank you for sharing it.
Shewriting, thank you, I’m glad that you could relate and know the same. I thought this poem would be a difficult one, but once I started, it simply wrote itself. And I’m glad, not only that the poem came together, but that I know exactly where it came from,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth, this is one of your very best: it spoke to me, vividly and emphatically.
May I venture a tiny crit? This stanza: When
“lonely and alone was only
thing you knew,
I was there.”
I think the first line would read better as “lonely and alone the only
thing you knew etc.
Viv, thank you for those very generous words. My soul is (in Walt Whitman words) my Other I Am. That part of me that reaches both to me and beyond me into the spiritual.
I don’t mind the crit at all. Even understand what you are getting at. But, when I was writing it, I was thinking about all those years before the Other I Am came forward and spoke to me. I may have thought and felt alone, but I wasn’t. And will definitely think about what you have suggested. Thanks so much,
Elizabeth
Someone once said that you could take the most over-stated sentimental song lyrics (like many country/western songs often are), but shifted, the voice from human to spirit (God, if you will, or however you like to say), then the lyrics can make actual and appropriate sense. (Not that I’m equating your words to that kind of phrasing, overly sentimental.)
But this poem can be spoken in several voices. And one of them is definitely from the spiritual self to the living/breathing self in this world. (Even to say, spiritual to human life… “And I am still here, still breathing.”) Spirit does breath, and we are that breath.
How else do poems speak from such a voice of authority in life?
This poem speaks with that voice, and builds beautifully to that final statement. Thank you Elizabeth.
Neil, I used to tell my students that the word spirit, comes from ‘spire’, which means breath. To be inspired means to breathe in. And that when they wrote they were simply exhaling onto the page, bringing more life to whatever they had to say. That is what I felt while writing this. Taking my words and living inside of the lesson.
And I really like a lot of country/western music, lol. But, then I love an awful lot of music, and definitely feel, when I turn it on, that someone else is speaking to me besides whatever singer is mouthing those words. Have you ever listened to ‘Solsbury Hill’ by Peter Gabriel? Or ‘My Immortal’ by Evanescense? Or ‘I Will Never Be the Same’ by Melissa Etheridge, or ‘Elsewhere’ by Sarah McLaughlen, or ‘I Believe’ by R.E.M? See what I mean? Lol. And damn, it feels good to be thought of in relation to any of them.
This whole series of poems I am doing for PAD was jump started by an old country/western song in a movie I was watching, “If I needed you…” by the gentle giant Don Williams. Oh yes, I know what you are saying and thank you profusely for saying it,
Elizabeth
“…And I am still here, still breathing…” such a song of wonderful, beautiful hope shining bright…
thank you ms pie. I like it a lot, myself, lol. Thank you for stopping and commenting,
Elizabeth