Inspiring Women: Tara Sophia Mohr: Big Poems

Tara Sophia Mohr’s poems put me in the company of two huge insights.

At one point, she communicates the richness and vastness of life and at the same time its essential inexplicable and inextinguishable qualities:

“You will be asked: Did you know it,
this place, this journey?

What there is to know can’t be written.
Something between the crispness of air
and the glint in her eye
and the texture of the orange peel.”

(In the End)

and here:

“I never believed in death, for I never saw it.

I saw only that this became that.
The petals fell away, and the thing became a stem,
and the floor became scattered in pink.

Containers break. Eras end.
Thing-ness only a stopping ground,
a pause at the train station, followed by moving on.

You were never yourself, and I was never I.
Everything cresting and falling,
giving way, again, to the ocean.”

(I Never Believed in Death)

At the same time, in the face of something truly spectacular and mindful of personal insignificance, Tara urges this expansion of one’s living through power and action:

“When you know you are a just a disco party
of cells that came together for a time,
you’ll live like the blazing sphere you are,
and dance with the spheres around you.”

(I Never Believed in Death)

And with the understanding of life’s abundance, comes both appreciation and aim:

“Don’t be greedy with the universe, she said to me.

But she didn’t say it in the mean way.

She didn’t say don’t dream big, don’t want things, don’t think you

deserve.

She meant: look at your life and trust it.

Notice how you have forever been given what you need.”

(The Real Life)

Or in this one, a generous response provoked by belonging given by awareness of nature:

“I walked backwards, against time

and that’s where I caught the moon

singing at me.

I steeped downwards, into my seat

and that’s where I caught freedom

waiting for me like a lilac.

I ended thought, and I ended story.

I stopped designing, and arguing, and

sculpting a happy life.

…

Instead I chopped vegetables,

and made a calm lake in me

where the water was clear and sourced and still.

And when the ones I loved came to it,

I had something to give them, and

it offered them a soft road out of pain.”

(The Quiet Power)

And especially in this invitation, which displays mindfulness of life’s fleeting nature and a sense of urgent calm:

“This is your time.

Your time to say what you have kept silent.

Your time to ask your big questions without apology.

Your time to shine like a blazing comet,

whether they like it or not.

Your time to believe what your heart tells you:

that this world could be very different.

Your time to live by your rhythms,

and teach them to the world.”

(“This is Your Time,” in Your Other Names excerpt, p.3)

These are relatively short poems, but inside them is infinity, communicating what’s big and inspiring me to becoming bigger, enabling me to hold seemingly disparate thoughts at the same time. Brilliant.

Inspiring Women: Jessica Kristie: Journey through poetry

I’ve read Jessica’s blog and poems for a while now and what inspires me is the life journey that she records and transforms through her writing and with many voices.

Jessica’s motto is: “Poetry is my heart, anchors my soul, and documents my journey.” Next to these words on her site is the following cluster: “Learn Forgive Grow Hope Remember Love.” Quite a constellation of life directions, isn’t it? Or again in Jessica’s words, confronted with death, “Living – is where we find our verse.”

Especially facing painful memories:

"The sounds of each letter find their way to a piece of me –
I have been trying to forget." (Shades of You and Me)

"I beg for revolving doors.
Pain in: my journey in life.
Pain out: to grow and change." (Love Letter)

At the same time, appreciation for connection with others in pain:

"In an instant you breathe hope

while standing still in this suffocation.

Restoring my soul

and making me

intimately whole.

With no hesitation you breathe love.

Bringing back my estranged comfort.

Reminding me of who I can be."

(Hidden Hero)

When pain seems unending and change seems impossible:

“When I get up from this bed – all the pain,
it will,

still be there.”

(Empty)

“Change becomes the expectation
When reality plays out

It is only the exception”

(A Day Like Any Other)

Then there is the realization that change must come from within and through action:

“We Walk on Water”

"Down on bended knee, as my bluest aqua blue,

reminds me of a bitter truth -

I must change."

“Tragedy’s Room”

"Today I want to put skin around my words,

turn sentences into limbs,

and reach across the seas."

Also from “We Walk on Water”

"What a masterpiece I have created in my soul’s foliage.

It is shaped of stars with scented breezes."

"Today is the day you make a mark. Change. Years go by in moments and death replaces life. Today is the day you fix this. There is an expiration date that for this moment has been delayed, but someday, we will be out of appeals. Live. Now."

Similarly, not only changing moving forward but changing the past and how we see it, “What we think we know will halt us in our tracks, but when we move in the water as smooth as dolphins – our history can change.” (Eyes Wide Open)

Jessica’s dramatic and heartfelt first poetry collection, Dreaming in Darkness, will soon be followed by a second, Threads of Life, evidently exploring dysfunctional relationships. Jessica’s generosity to fellow artists and writers on parallel journeys is also evident from her Inspiring Ink series the open mic poetry reading she’s hosting.

Keep writing, Beautiful Butterfly, you’re something else.

"What can communicate tries"

The above words are from a poem by Cid Corman, don't remember which. And I don't know if I can communicate, say what I mean, or even mean what I say, from this living/dying corpse.

Alone and not alone. I remember hearing that F.H. Bradley described human experience as a "circle enclosed on the outside." There are things inside that I know, maybe, but I don't know how to articulate them. And there are things I don't know about you, unless you tell me, and I don't know what you're really thinking, and perhaps it's none of my business.

I generally have a positive outlook, some degree of curiosity, compassion for others and patience. The patience has not been easy to come by. (And some wonder if it is a virtue anyway.) For instance, I was getting frustrated with my daughter for taking so long to get ready to go out to dinner. Just put anything on, I thought, and then it dawned on me that she didn't want to just put "anything" on, that how she looks and her image is very important to her, so I waited. It was that brief moment of understanding, rare for me.

And there are parts of me that are dark to myself. I think of the Johari window, which I learned about in a management class some years ago, that image has always stuck with me. It's an effective model with four rooms: things I know and others know, things I don't know or see that others know about me, things I don't even know that are hidden with me and things that I know that no one else knows and I probably won't reveal. It's a humbling concept, especially with half the field unknown to me at least, the limits of my knowledge, perception and understanding. So everyone's walking around with Johari windows, or known unknowns or unknown knowns.

A good reason for connecting with others, to save me from my bullshit, have I considered this angle, have I forgotten about this that actually means something to me? How does my daughter feel right now? Did she sleep well, is she still asleep, is she cold or warm, anxious or relaxed, or did she stay up much of the night posting on Facebook?

So what do I know?

I'm lucky to be alive and in a warm place and have food and air and water and have support of family and friends, even though I take all this for granted and won't ask for help and have a hard time taking or acting on the help that's given me.

I know the sun will shine in my back door someday.

I know that life flows in and through me.

I know that whatever I've done and what I do today has consequences and I am responsible.

And I know that I know only a little and can say less and have to accept that 99.99999999.....% is out of my control and have to find the next thing that must be done, as Gary Snyder said after his brief detour into the maverick bar, "the real work, to/"What is to be done."

(Do kids still respect the college dean?)