The last words you ever wrote
Do you ever think about the last thing you ever wrote?
No, I mean REALLY wrote. Wrote as in, this is a poem. This is a song. This is a story.
I have to read a poem today and there will be a child listening to that poem. My daughter. And the last poem I wrote was about domestic abuse. She is young. Untouched by the cruel realities of this world. So I cannot read that poem.
Then something moved me. A word in an email from a sibling. This word lingered in my brain. This one word. It got my muse roiled up.
I tried to write a poem using this word. I wrote it on demand, without inspiration as my guide. Forcing words. Forcing images. I tried to push them all into something coherent. Something that could possibly pass as a "poem" for me to read. An age-appropriate poem.
But all for naught. My work was in vain, for the poem was awful. Without life, without fervor, without passion or direction. Or heart.
So I am stuck with a miserable poem, instead of a poem that is too mature for young ears to hear.
And I wonder...which of these is the greater evil?
No, I mean REALLY wrote. Wrote as in, this is a poem. This is a song. This is a story.
I have to read a poem today and there will be a child listening to that poem. My daughter. And the last poem I wrote was about domestic abuse. She is young. Untouched by the cruel realities of this world. So I cannot read that poem.
Then something moved me. A word in an email from a sibling. This word lingered in my brain. This one word. It got my muse roiled up.
I tried to write a poem using this word. I wrote it on demand, without inspiration as my guide. Forcing words. Forcing images. I tried to push them all into something coherent. Something that could possibly pass as a "poem" for me to read. An age-appropriate poem.
But all for naught. My work was in vain, for the poem was awful. Without life, without fervor, without passion or direction. Or heart.
So I am stuck with a miserable poem, instead of a poem that is too mature for young ears to hear.
And I wonder...which of these is the greater evil?
posted by Dawn Wilson @ 11:10 AM
2 Comments:
At 7:49 PM ,
colbymarshall said...
If I had to stick with the last words I wrote, as in, if I died right now, I will have written about being prejudiced against a marmoset. Hm...maybe I should rethink my blog topic for the evening, lol.
At 10:22 AM ,
Dawn Wilson said...
LOL Good call. :)
And, you know, they do make a big deal about "the last thing written" or "the last thing said" when somebody dies. It's not always quite so romantic as what was portrayed on the TV show "8 Simple Rules." I think about "the last blog post I wrote before I died" or "the last poem written," etc., and have to wonder just how things like that would be taken. There is a very good chance all of it could be taken the wrong way.
I read a biography of Oscar Wilde once and the author kept taking stuff Wilde wrote and basing it on what Wilde must have been thinking or feeling at the time. I kept screaming at the book, "How do you even KNOW that??" Writers are not exactly that transparent.
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