On rare occasions, poetry pops into my dreamscape complete, every word in place and patient for ink. Well, last night that did NOT happen. Instead, what popped into my head was a poem I wrote when I was 8, followed by another I wrote at 20, and one beyond that.
What popped into my head was an idea for a post!
A good thing, since I was coming up with squat.
Below are those poems:
Age 8 – as written
Patterns
If all the world were patterns
Ill tell you what there woud be
A dot woud be a flower
A line woud be a tree.
Age 20 – after staying up all night trying to write a poem for class, I gave up and wrote this
Two Ravens
Two ravens sat one sunny day
Upon a scarecrow stuffed with hay.
They perched on his arm and pecked at his head
Just to see whether the bastard was dead.
Although not quite certain the poor soul was dead
They looked at each other and one raven said,
“He must be real stupid with a head full of weeds.”
“Pretty damn ugly,” the other agreed.
Up and down its arm they paced.
They looked in its eyes and said to its face,
“Not very kind of your family or friends
To leave you out here in the rain and the wind.”
The ravens they strutted in deep contemplation
Worried to death by the sad situation.
They sought for an answer to bring him relief
But the scarecrow’s position was far past belief.
When on came the evening the facts they did face
That the scarecrow was really a poor hopeless case.
They filled up their beaks with plenty of corn
And headed due west over cornfields toward home.
Age 50 – written for The Melding of Aeris
In the Garden
In the garden of eternity
Beauty unveils her secret soul
From the dark and silent soil
Unaware of her own loveliness
She is the verdant field, the quaking leaves
Arching branches heavy with summer sweet
He finds her entangled in creeping vines
Wending the pathways to his heart
She colors the lover’s ardent cheek
Burns in the flames’ crimson belly
Her fingers pry open the secret worlds of night
To find him, buried in a gemmed mine
Yet undiscovered
Longing
They travel this journey side by side
Beauty and Love
that the desert may become a garden
that timid wings may rise in flight
And when the petals fall
Carried by winter’s white wind
Love will bear Beauty beyond the veil of death
Into eternal spring.
Poetry image from flickr.com
Flower image from commons.wikipedia.org
Myths of the Mirror 
What a wonderful idea to post creations from different periods of your life. Also, I am relieved to find that I am not the only one who saves a lot of writings and art. I am not the only one 🙂
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Thanks, Ted. It was great fun to browse the stack of old stuff. Eventually I need to weed through it or my poor daughter is going to be stuck with it!
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Make sure someone keeps their hands on all of it..Your family years and years down the line, will know who you were by reading it. That is a good thing!!!
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The evolution of a poet!
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Fun, isn’t it? I’m afraid I’m sticking with prose, though 😀 Thanks for visiting and commenting!
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I liked all three poems also, Diana, and liked the second one best because of the humor. Well done. 🙂
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Thanks, Suzanne. I like the humor too 😀
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Reblogged this on Kev's Great Indie Authors and commented:
Diana shows us how our writing can change through the years! Welcome back, Diana!
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Thanks, Kev! Appreciated 🙂
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Great pleasure, Diana. 🙂
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These are all so beautiful, what a talent! I love the second one best, humour and great imagery!
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Thanks so much. I appreciate the visit and comment! 🙂
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These are wicked! The second poem, when you were 20 made me giggle 🙂 loved it ❤
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Thanks so much Sacha. It was pure fun sharing the old rhymes. 🙂
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Love the 8 year old poet, Diana,such a profound thought that made me smile, and remember. I was about that age when I started writing poems to cheer my mother up…no one saved any of them. So happy for you to have these, and to witness your evolution. Thanks for sharing. 💕
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How sweet that you wrote poems for you mother, Van, and sad that you don’t have any of them to read. My daughter rolls her eyes at the bin of old school papers I saved for her, but someday I think she’ll appreciate it. Thanks for the lovely comment. ❤
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Poetry is so difficult.
The first one really gets a smile.
Funny, they always say very young children and the old have something in common: able to cut through it all, see the essence, and say it. Will be interesting if you cycle back around at some point way down the road? (Hope you are printing this post out and tucking it into a special place until then)
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Kids often do have a clearer view of the world, wisdom in innocence. I still have a folder full of old poems and writings. Some are quite perceptive despite the poor spelling and immature voice. I’m sure I’ll revisit again. Thanks for visiting 🙂
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You’ve always had the gift! 😉
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Thanks, Michelle. You are sweet to say so. My interest lies in prose, but I like trying just about everything whether I’m good at it or not. Of course, I posted the best from all those years. 🙂 There’s plenty that I read while groaning.
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I’m sure the ones you didn’t post were just as good. I would love to see more of your poems! 🙂
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Your poem at age 8 is freakishly good for your age. It is my fave, misspellings and all, because of what it evokes in me. It is fun to see how your poetry unfolded over time!
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The 8 yr old one is taking the tiara. So funny. I found the original in a box of old writing that my dad saved. There were a few gems in there. 🙂
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Wow D!! priceless!! Thanks for sharing this is so wonderful!!
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Thanks, Hector. It was fun to write this post (and easy). Ha ha.
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And was wonderful to read too! Thanks!
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🙂
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Loved reading these, Diana. Aren’t you glad you saved those?
Many people have made fun of me over the years for saving things from my childhood. In my last post, I talked about being sentimental; and it’s really been a life-long thing. I don’t have any intentions of changing it. And in the case of having saved poetry, songs, recordings, stories, etc., from a very early age, there’s something almost magical about it. There is not one single cell in my body today that is the same as the person I was then. So those scraps are sometimes all there is to prove I was ever even there.
And, I have to say, looking back, my work as good. I am sometimes amazed at how much I understood before I “learned it”: internal poetic devices, word pictures, avoidance of cliches.
Once in my younger years, I reached out to a loner kid at my school through poetry. I knew he wrote, so I left an anonymous poem on his locker, challenging him under a pseudonym (“The Magical Master of Rhyme”) to a poetry duel. He accepted (as “Augustine”). The goal was to write a poem and, in that poem, follow the rules the last person left for you in their own poem, while posing their next rules. For instance, one included: “It must have 20 lines / Set as ten pairs of rhymes / And above all, it must start with ‘Z’.” And this went on for over a YEAR with no one bowing out, and the rules getting quite convoluted (e.g., “the number of the letter ‘s’ must be the same as the number of the letter ‘a’, and the word “the” may not appear, etc.).
And I still have them all!
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Whoa! I teased you below about wanting you to post your poetry and now I really want you to do it! What a great challenge in school and wonderful way to reach out to someone. That is so cool – I love it. And you have them all – amazing. Thanks so much for sharing that story. 😀 😀
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You started it!
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Ha ha. Too funny!
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I love this Diana… how our writing can change through the years is incredible.
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I have old short stories too, Kev. They would need quite a bit of work but the plots might be worth saving…someday. 😀
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You should put them all together and create an anthology. 😉
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You are so sweet to suggest it, but they just not that good. More fun for future posts 🙂
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You know, you could, create a series like a scrapbook, and put them together that way. 😀 (Ok, I’ll shut up about it now.) 😀
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They are all lovely at each age – must make you feel nostalgic, and sort of melancholy as well. The last one was just magical 🙂
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Thanks, Kelly. It was fun to go through my old writing, even though much of it was awful. Thanks for the comment on the last one…I was beginning to think I should have put the 8-yr-old one in my book! Haha.
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Probably just pulls at the heartstrings more since you wrote it as a little girl! I have writings from my childhood as well, but I don’t think I would have the courage to post anything! It was really cool to see your progression here though – quite a leap! 🙂
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Well, now you have a backup plan if you’re drawing a blank for a post. 🙂
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Absolutely! I’ll remember that! 🙂
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I enjoyed reading your poems! I liked them all, and to see how your poetry writing changed over the years. The raven one made me laugh! 🙂
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The changes were interesting for me too. That was the fun part of this post, I think. Thanks for the visit! 🙂
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Great post, the Ravens one is funny
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Thanks, Cat. Not a very profound post this week, but it was fun. 🙂
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From the little world of dots and lines to two Ravens, and eternal garden, Diane, there is a flowering of poetry, from a budding stage to a maturing sapling, through to a fully grown tree of richly foliaged and colourfully blooming branches, creatively stretching towards physical and metaphysical horizons. All three poems, like the tender bud, growing sapling and mature tree, are as equally beautiful as the toddling child, blushing girl, and winsome woman…best wishes… Raj.
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Thank you, Raj. Your lovely comment is better than my poetry :-). I truly appreciate the visit, and I’m glad you enjoyed the offering.
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What a delightful read! I very much enjoyed this trip down your memory lane of poetry. Great post! Love all the poems…the scarecrow made me smile at your humor noir. I hope you’ll do some more posts allowing us a window into your poetic history.
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Hmmm. I don’t know about that, MW. This was the best of the lot. 😀 Maybe some day if I’m desperate for a post I can publish the really awful ones just for the laughs. The thought is cringeworthy. 😀
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Haha! One person’s cringeworthy is another person’s treasure. 🙂
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What a wonderful idea for a post. Bet your 8 and 20-year-old self never imagined they’d end up on your blog. 😉
Lovely poetry at all ages!
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When I was 20, Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet. And, Carrie, we didn’t even have home computers! Its amazing I’m not a fossil! 😀 Thanks for the comment as always. ❤
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Well, I remember pre-Internet days too, so I’m well on my way to fossilization.
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😀 Oh dear. Gotta laugh though.
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Indeed we do. Even if it wrinkles our faces.
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Those wrinkles are the best kind 🙂 Working on some at this very moment.
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Agreed!
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I like all of the poems, but I think I like the Age-8 one the best. That’s a pretty young age to have the ability to put an abstract concept into words.
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Thanks, Dan. I don’t know if I was much of an abstract thinker at 8, but I’ll take the compliment!
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I loved the Two Ravens poem ❤ I always get so jealous of those who can write poetry lol It is a talent that I do not possess. But I love reading it on other people's blogs.
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Thanks for the comment. I’m fond of that one too. My professor at the time liked the humor mixed with a hint of darkness. 🙂
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Lol – what does it say about me that the first one was my favorite, even as I enjoyed all of them (especially the idea for a post one)? 😀
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You and everyone else, Nicholas. I should have stopped when I was 8! Ha ha. 😀 😀
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Ha ha – what a scary thought 😀
Nah, the crows were brilliant, too, even as beauty was the most poignant and well-written. But you can’t beat an 8-year-old’s power of simplicity 🙂
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Anything written by kids is great in my mind. The simplicity is fun, and I love the quirky way kids look at things, including life 🙂
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My feelings exactly. What they lack in technique, they more than make up in creativity 🙂
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8 year old you is a genius! 😉
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Ha ha. A savant! 😀
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Love these! (Especially the one written as an 8 year old 🙂 )
If you still have your teenage angst-ridden efforts, maybe you could convert these into “found” poetry, and discover something new in there? I really regret not having anything similar from my own past
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Thanks. Everyone seems to appreciate the 8 yr old poetic genius. Ha ha. Oh, those teenage ones are either horrible or depressing. I’m going to stick with prose, but it was fun going back and reading old work. I was lucky that my parents saved it.
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I enjoyed the poems, and appreciate you including your difficulties in coming up with a post for today too. Knowing that even well established writers and bloggers have difficulty coming up with their next idea, makes my weekly struggles feel more normal.
I’ve always been impressed with people who can write poetry too. I love the simplicity of the first, am still smiling at the creativity and humor of the second, and love the depth of the third. Thanks for sharing these 🙂
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Thanks, Jed. I’m often scrambling for posts! If I’ve got two in the hopper, it’s a miracle. I don’t consider myself a poet, but poetry is great fun, even for the unqualified :-). My 2 yr old grandson and I have already started silly rhyming and it’s a hoot!
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I don’t really believe in “the unqualified” concept. Poetry is expression and we are made to express. So being human qualifies us all, if so inclined.
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You’re right, Erik, but…um…well. Writing it is one thing, posting it is another. When are you going to post your poetry? Hmmm? (I’m just teasing, of course 🙂
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I thought about it for a second. But this is your moment to shine! I wouldn’t think of being a “limelight stealer.”
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Thanks. I want you to do a whole post of your own. It’s a wonderful complement to your chapter on the fireworks. 🙂
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Ricky in the “Creative Love” chapter, yes! I hadn’t thought of it that way. But I love that you made that connection (even these months after having read the book).
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That was one of my favorite chapters – a tear jerker.
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How brilliant is it that you still have the poems! I loved the first one. From the eyes of an 8 year old it is so perceptive. Great post D! 😊
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Thanks, Belinda. My parents saved a folder of my drawings, poetry and writing from elementary school. Some of it is a hoot! 😀
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Love it. All three are great and show how different we can be at different stages of our lives. Why aren’t yours as embarrassing as my teenage poetry? 😉
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Oh, boy, I have some sappy, melodramatic stuff that I just couldn’t – could not – post. Yeesh. (Notice I skipped my high school years.) It was fun looking through the old stuff and seeing the changes. 😀
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Growing up, my best friend had a rhyming mind at a very early age, like you. Not the Dr Seuss sing-songy rhythm one might expect at that age, but deeply provocative. She wrote poetry for as long as she was alive and oftentimes I wonder, had she lived longer, if she’d have shared her gift through blogging. Thanks for inspiring wonderful memories and sharing your life’s rhythm….I look forward to reading more. R
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So happy to connect, Rhonda. I’m not a poet, really, but a dabbler who isn’t afraid to put whatever out here. I’m sorry that your friend didn’t get to share her words more broadly, but I’m glad to have brought up a few warm memories. ❤
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I find the best poets (or the ones that touch me) are ones that write from the heart, not the head (clever but lacking something I can grab onto) so the title is just a word. I see poetry as the rhythm of one’s life (I’m beginning to sound redundant…eek) and if I can dance to it, then I’m a fan. 🙂
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I agree. I love poetry that moves me, that’s bigger than the collection of words. Some of my favorite poets paint pictures and use the sounds of words and phrasing to create sensory lushness. Though I’m not a poet, I follow quite a few for the mere love of their words. 🙂
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The first poem really captured me. You had such a beautiful mind, at such a young age! 🙂 The second one made me smile and smile, and I really enjoyed all three!
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Thank you. The second one (which I whipped off) actually made it to my college anthology. Says something about all those that I toiled over. A lesson in there, I think. 😀
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It is often those visceral “whip-offs” that are the best.
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That, is amazing! There may be some truth in that, you know, unless you’re one of those kinds that produce the best results under pressure of time? Either way, they are pure treasures 🙂
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The first poem is so sweet 🙂 And of course I love the other two.
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Thank you, Irena. You are sweet to say so. I’m glad they were fun to read. 😀
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I enjoyed all of those; so different but all appealing in their own way. Thanks so much for sharing 🙂
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You’re welcome! The trip down poetry-memory-lane was fun as I prepared this post. Thanks for stopping by 🙂
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It is lovely to look back 🙂
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Even at a young age. 🙂 The Two Ravens made me laugh… great imagery and rhythm. I still write some poetry, but not nearly as much as when I was in my 20’s. It’s always interesting to see the growth and outlook of a writer (or any artist, really) as they mature.
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I agree, Steven. It was fun writing these down and noting the change over time. I’m glad you liked the Two Ravens. I still get a kick out of it. 🙂
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Yes, it is; how they evolve before finding a style that suits them 🙂
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