I like my voice

{mebilia}

God delivers messages through goosebumps.  Just a moment ago a conversation with my grandmother from last week about writing and poetry and life and missions slid into my mind.  When she said, "I like my voice" it left such a powerful impression on me that I haven't been able to forget it... like a song that plays over and over again in my head.  Grandma Mary was sharing her wisdom about growing as a writer and praying for gifts.  If you want something, if you lack a gift, pray for it she says.  Let the spirit guide you, write for yourself, and for God, don't compare yourself to others.  I asked her so many questions and she answered so many... she has always been my mentor.  I have grown through the years listening to her poetry, her songs, her stories about dragons and Joseph of Egypt.  I have recently struggled with my own voice as doubt and discouragement creep into my head.  I yearn to express what's in my heart, and I have felt with the over-abundance of writers out there, that I am but a mere whisper.  Then when she said, "I like my voice" it hit me, don't write to please "them", write just because it's who you are... let it flow, cultivate your expression, meld it into something organic, not forced.  Sometimes I feel like I'm in preschool, making sentences with a limited vocabulary... like I know something is inside of me wanting to get out, and I can't translate my emotions into human language.  I want to be able to say that "I like my voice".

***

Minutes later after I thought about my grandmother, I opened an email message from my mom saying that her dear aunt Helen, my grandmothers sister, had passed away suddenly last night.  It feels raw to talk about this, but I can't help but notice the timing of my thoughts and the way the spirit was telling me something deep and important if I would listen, and I did.  Sometimes getting answers to prayers is like retrieving broken morse code, snatching parts here and there... when at a magical moment, the dots and dashes come together to complete the whole message, making perfect sense... harmony.  My great Aunt Helen was an amazing poet.  She won many awards and was as graceful and talented as a woman could be.  She will be so missed, but we have her words, her voice.  We can carry her and visit her thoughts when we read her poems.  Because she has opened her heart and shared it in ink, we have her with us always... in that respect, writing makes you eternal. 

***

The following are some of Helen's poems taken from the book-

Bread and Milk and Music- Three Sister's Voices

by, karen keith gibson, helen keith beaman, and mary keith boyack

*

Stringing Beads

My first best friend and I searched

for treasure behind her house

Where rain dripped from eaves,

we found tiny rocks glinting in sunlight,

pieces of colored glass: rubies, emeralds,

diamonds---and bugs we held like jewels

as they rolled themselves up into beads

I see a dragonfly darting, darning

holes in my sky, stitching together

prayers and songs I sang as a child,

stringing them, knotting the ends:

pearls to present to God.

I sat with my daughter, guiding

the dull needle as she strung popcorn

She sits with her daughters threading

jewels of colored glass, boxes of rainbows.

Blackbirds, strung like onyx beads

on the power line, lift together

and scatter, the necklace breaking.

I look for pieces under my bed,

in the corners.  Fingers brush

back and forth, so I don't miss

what I cannot see.

My husband recounts stories

nospaceinbetween, linked

like paper chains on a Christmas tree

until they connect ending to beginning.

This morning he brought me

a dead dragonfly, arms fold,

wings wide to span a lifetime.

I frame it against a sky, watch,

wait for the signal to unfold,

to wing our way home.

*

Lon Grew Up

thinking he was as old

as his siblings.  He and I talk.

His kindergarten friend walks

with leg braces.  Lon watches

him go all the way across

the tricky-bars, cheers him on.

The other kids pull faces, laugh.

Hey, you just do the baby way!

Duh-duh, duh-duh---little baby!

Well, I bet you couldn't do it

if you'd had polio!  Lonnie slams

the words back at them.

His breath staggers in the telling,

throat constricts, eyes expand, hands clench.

He relives the passion.

He grew up to be a policeman--

father of three sons

and six daughters.

He has championed all of them

just like he did his friend

in first grade.

*

Missing Lines

I search for the grandmother

who died too soon to hang a memory on.

The family photograph fails to capture more

than one stark and stilted flash,

a final sitting before she was too weak

to sit, before she was---

Daddy, not yet six, stands

behind the others.  I see pain

in his face.  Bess hid his shoes,

but it's more than that.

The three sisters cluster like the Pleiades

around Grandmother's knee.

The pain in her face is because--

I search, trying to pry loose

her mask of mortality.  That shell,

closing too soon on her life,

also hides us from ourselves.

Grandchildren will scan my image,

wondering what I never knew myself.