Finding the Poetry Inside of You

The first time I watched this video, I laughed and admired the girl's tattoos.  The second time through I thought about the significance cell phones have in telling personal narratives and in celebrations.  People love stories, and the story we like best is our own.   We have always used whatever is available to us to record the preciousness of life.  What do clay tablets and cave drawing show us if not this?   And cell phones with the Internet and camera, allow sharing in an instant.  Impulsively, we type and click.  The same is true of celebrations.  Before, we might have clapped at the end of our child's performance. Now we draw out our newly evolved appendage, and we click.   Even food, a party's right-hand man, shares a place of necessity with the cell phone.  If an event is worthy of honor, we bring cake (and we take pictures of it).  If we want to show our friends we value our lunch date, we post it to facebook.

Is it bad that cell phones have taken the place of a clap or a letter?  As the video painfully showed us, cell phones make us look silly, but honestly, who's looking up to see it?  I have a track phone that mostly stays in my desk, but I do love the Internet.  I use it to tell my sister how closely she is bound to me, even though I haven't seen her since Christmas. I like that sixty-six people wished me happy birthday on facebook, and I've used my camera and then a click on-line to tell my story.  There is nothing wrong with it; it's just not enough.  I don’t want the instant click to be the only way I record and celebrate.  I want to remember my life through words I struggle to arrange, and not just the ones I hurried onto a screen.  I want the girth of reflection writing poetry gives me.  Try it.  It's doesn't need to be anything grand; just tell your story.  

Sitting in Church- September 1, 2013

I rub arms 
against soft, young skin.
My girls
twisting
braiding
the ribbons 
green, black, white, red
from the prayer book.
Their hands move to settle their bodies.

The organ plays.
Voices 
high and bold 
rise up.
They quiver with age.

The church is babies and white-hairs.
The black hair of my children
will someday turn white,
but for now 
I turn to the white-hairs.
Oh, the glory of 
those white hairs.

They kneel,
holding grandchildren-
holding us all-
they lead us on.

-two of my dark-haired children 
-after Sunday service at Grace Church 

(not in September)
  My church has come to mean so much to me.  I wanted to remember why.