One Paige

I can’t take credit for this poem, but it is one of my favorites and I felt like sharing it.

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

By:  H.W. Longfellow

Standing outside looking in on my own reflection.  That thermometer hanging in the frosty window says it’s below freezing, but I wouldn’t know.  I am numb to this now.  I wouldn’t feel hot coals under my feet.  The only light inside this dusty old place is a dying candle, flickering, waiting to be put out of it’s misery.

This used to be my home and look at the place.  Just look at it, warping and falling to pieces.  I do not belong here anymore, a place I still want to call home, but I watch the ruins from out here.  It’s not safe in that house anymore.  Sometimes it’s just the wind that blows me back up those stairs and inches me towards the door, but I know I am not welcome here.  I turn away shyly so not to be seen, but I forget you cannot see me.

This is your home.  I withered away long ago and let you keep this piece of junk.  I watch as you light a match and hover your hand over that candle encouraging it, coaxing it to last a little bit longer.  It won’t light.  It’s garbage.  I try to warn you, urge you to give it a rest, but I forget you cannot hear me.

No chance to say goodbye, I must go.  I have found a brighter place to call home.  I have not learned to feel yet, but it is warmer there in my new home.  I will learn to love my new home.  It is safe there.

I took a stroll down memory lane this week.  Ahh…memory lane.  I’d expect to find this soothing, but it was a learning experience.  I’ve had this blog for quite some time and never knew what to make of it.  Poems?  Short stories?  An open Journal?  Maybe.  It was lacking something.  I suppose that is my excuse for abandoning it.

I read my old posts trying to account for the time lapse since my most recent entry.  I can’t say I suffer from writer’s block for as many years that I let go by without creating a new entry.  At least this wasn’t the kind of writer’s block I am familiar with.

I hadn’t lost my muse.  It’s still there, but this was my subconscious urging me to build a better relationship with my subjects.  Unfortunately I don’t go through a healing process when I write and this often causes wear on tear on my emotions.  The memories are still there and the subject hasn’t changed, but the entries are gone for now.  It was an opportunity to grow as a person, as a woman, and as a writer.  My subject no longer has control over me;  we have a better relationship.  I had to open my mind to new subjects, which I have not found, but I feel it will come in due time.  I see this lapse in time as a new beginning, perhaps a writer’s beginning.