
(Written during my bedbound years with ME/CFS)
As a child, I knew no limits, setting out on adventures with never a fear for how I’d find my way back home.
Now, nestled in my home, I limit myself to certainties, fearful of risks.
Some days, I wonder about that child, and how it would feel to wander freely, and it makes me smile.
The body may be hindered, but the imagination remains forever young.
(Post originally appeared on One Woman’s Quest II, May 2022)
Favourite colour?
Black, says she
without hesitation
I falter, stumble,
mind reaching –
who likes black?
Is that a colour?
It’s all colours!
She’s nonchalant
intent on task –
carefully keeping
within the lines
Of course it is...
ill equipped am I
to disagree, images
of dark somber
corners, sorrow
and death crows –
Why black? ask I,
composure forced –
had anticipated pink
equate childhood
with primary shades,
splotches of yellow
and rainbow skies,
candy red apples
on lollipop trees
But black? No –
black obliterates,
negates, destroys
It holds the colour
inside, she explains.
It’s the outline.
Not annihilation –
order; her mind
conceives of order
So much to learn
from innocence,
have long forgotten
the art of staying
within lines, finding
good in all things.
(Colouring Lessons first appeared here June, 2017. Image my own)
Light fades
sun’s optimism
giving way to shadows
My eyes are drawn to hidden places
warily seeking the source of this disquiet
What beasts inhabit crevices, what creatures lurk
hiding in the trees that loom over me?
Could it be the incarnation
of trapped souls
taunting my passage?
(Image my own)
Every child a dreamer
school the tribunal
where imagination
is sentenced to death
Adulthood is a canyon
where ambition shelters
the broader view, till age
resurrects the child.
(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson.
Image my own.)
Tether me
to the riverbank
I will resist
There are currents
to follow, contours
to memorize
Let me soar
these wings capable
imagination intact.
(Image mine)
Elaborate, the tree forts
imagination envisions
Indifferent, the rationale
that overpowers inspiration
I balk, abandon hope,
build a wall instead,
forgetting…
Creativity is not linear,
tolerates input, planning,
some alternatives preferred.
(Featured image from personal collection. Â Doesn’t it just say: Â “Climb me!”? Â This image is a Live Oak, in Texas, and is available on various products at Society6.)
Words encased,
mysteries bound –
their secrets unlock
neon possibilities –
light exploding,
neurons swirling
no containing
the magic unleashed
when pages turn.
(For Willow Poetry’s What Do You See? challenge.  Photo supplied by Hélène Vaillant.)
Manufacture fresh starts –
build bridges across the abyss,
stay afloat,
imagining –
mythical passages,
fantastical places,
magic of wizardry
just keep the foes submerged,
act carefully,
the house
is under surveillance,
observers
quietly learning.
Remember when lines meant challenge
and colouring was not confined to
parameters, but an invitation
to explore, and days spent
contemplating invited
song, and nothing
really mattered
except the
moment?
There is a place
balanced between
the bustle of doing and
the edge of non-existence
where fantasy beckons,
where aged minds, content
with past accomplishments
come to rest, to ponder –
who once again recognize
that lines hold no significance,
that colours know no limits,
that music uplifts the mind,
and that memories are places of
exploration, and the moment
is all we ever have.