The Graceful Graduate

I've been avoiding this

Procrastinating

Actually refusing to acknowledge

Living in an incomplete picture

Breaking the brush that started the drawing

You see

this was one landscape I was never really intended to complete

something I started and was an integral part of at it's inception

and as the years passed, I became less

Less the designer

Less the artist

Less the lead in the pencil and more the rough draft

Less necessary

This was one work of art that grew on it's own

Took on it's own identity and blossomed into it's own original piece

vibrant, dynamic, intense and soothing

Alive with depth

Alluring, energetic, broad

A portrait I started but life took over

and delivered an adult

that resembles me in appearance

but surpasses me in life

A daughter that found herself amidst the rubble of my mistakes

and created a statue of standing

Solid

Unique

and Grounded in Grace

Finding Faith and Taking Flight

Faith grows where darkness covers

blue despair that blindly hovers

Lending light to the black hollow

giving promise to the slated sorrow

Lifting spirits from grey to white

until we find our guiding light

Finding Heart

If my pencil pierces your heart

 then I was dutifully lead to purpose

if it has merely brushed the surface

 then I must find a sharper tool

Trust Where I Lead

Remnants are small pieces of something larger
There is nothing one can do to collect these scraps and reproduce what was once there in full scale

This, a reality I grapple with each day

Beneath the flab of my forearms is a swimmers stroke

Weakened with age but having traversed extensive miles,
 I'm well traveled and ready to conquer the strongest current life throws
Among the perimeter of my thighs is the power of a once steadfast runner

Who could plod through a course with the dedication of a soldier,
slower than most but ready to stay the course

Buried amidst the rolls and creases of my midsection is the core of who I have always been
A person indulgent in excess but always ready to absorb the slights directed at others

Embroiled in my brain is a complex path that's fighting to pave the way
Within the grasp of my hands is the guidance I offer anyone willing to take hold and
Trust where I lead

Shot Gun

The Words
As quickly as they escape
Shot down in mid air
Blasted away
Serving as target practice for the hunter
Shattered and stunned



The Victim
Learns to disseminate sparingly
Traveling softly
Quietly
Almost non-existent
So as not to awaken the hunter
But the shot gun has already taken a life

Free Form

If fear is the film that strangles our existence

Then we must learn to shed the skin that hinders our movement

Taking free form and engaging the entanglement

Cast Away

if you throw me a line and I catch it

I was meant to be saved

if I miss the line

I was meant to swim on my own

finding my strength, stroke and balance

It's not always in the cast