I’ve been asked many times what it was in my life that inspired me to write poems. The answer is: my 4th grade teacher. Miss Blaze was a remarkably creative person who deeply believed that we should learn that our own creativity could be discovered and appreciated throughout our lifetime.
She explained that poetry was a means of sharing thoughts from the mind and feelings from the heart. One day every month was labeled “poem day” in which we read a poem we had written on a subject suggested by Miss Blaze such as “The Moon” or “What Makes Me Happy”. Format could be rhyming or blank verse.
Through the years, each time I have written a poem I send a message from my heart. Thanks Miss Blaze.
REMEMBERING
I understand little of these days, these hours
That fly with surety toward an end I know not what.
Childhood dreams long forgot.
Mountains obscure, heat generated by the moon.
An allegory without words takes shape.
With trembling hands I hold fast, denying escape.
My tears contain infinity and drop on the page.
I close the book and it is forgotten anguish.
Something blue, something cold, something amiss.
Time stops, perhaps converses in a shriek of reverses.
A tender heart hesitates, listens, and moves on.
My eyes, dimmed by years, made weak by fears
Twinkle with one last song.
I pray to be reborn.
To crawl, walk, run, smile, laugh and sing.
But most of all. . .to remember.
Jim Kennison
For my sister-in-law Dianna Kennison, whose vibrant light was darkened by the cruelty of Alzheimer’s.
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