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| Watercolor rainbow by a small daughter with a big heart and imagination |
by John R. Leax
from his book Grace is Where I Live
This place that claims my midlife
labor is not an Eden I have made.
It is a place of trial.
My hope resides in yielding
to what calls me still to stay.
No charming serpent curls
about my arm and whispers
in my ear. But I am tempted
nonetheless. Like Homer
I take the stories of my people,
I give them shape, and hand
them down. What I pass on
is truth made new--half-truth
spun through kind invention.
The world I make is finer
than the world I know. How else
contain the bitterness, the pain,
the grief? I have not lied.
I say my words; I seek
the wholeness of the world.
Like Homer I am blind.
I see what is not here.
I see this place by word
and grace a new creation.
That word is what I've found.
That grace is where I live.
~*~*
Blitz-skimming through Google Reader, I found a review of a different book by Leax and recognized his name as the poet of "What I Have Found" which I read a few years ago. My e-mail account is a virtual file cabinet of things I have tucked away or shared, so it was easy enough to find. I had sent this one to a cousin.
Read it carefully! What do you think it means? Is it talking about authors and story-tellers only? Or can it be for mothers-who-create-beauty-and-order-in-chaos as well?
Leave a comment!
Virginia
P.S. I am a poet, too. Here is the index of some of my poems, which are linked on a few of my blogs. Feel free to leave a comment on them, too!
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