sixteen thoughts going on six

sixteen thoughts going on six
 
 
here’s a dream about me being awake

and in that dream someone suggested I am wiser now

than once upon some other time

like when I was sixteen as they suggested to me

so I wondered in this dream what is it now

what more do I know now more than then

if in fact I do? and I thought a list just like this in my pocket place

learn to distill honey from bitter salt words

forgive broken dreamers no matter how many

trust your heart even if it’s tempting to forget

embrace the awkwardness of learning – that’s the choice

you are here for more than you

learn to dance

so what would I tell that young boy if I could

and then I thought sixteen? well that’s not right because it’s much too late

because by then I was already long long far lost and dark

so it was obvious six or seven or eight and then at least there’d be a chance

making some difference then

I thought just who am I writing to and how would I understand

because me as the world was all different then

because if I’m doing this shouldn’t I make it really real? for that boy

so what are the words that would make sense of all this experience in sum

that now is me? and realized that only experience can honestly teach

and not words like a parent who’s already dead or

in this case not even yet born and can only express by intent of care

and besides who am I not to love to allow to let that child fall

through those many pains and become

the child like a weed inside me right now right here

and wondering what’s the better truth

and then I thought maybe he is already reading all of this

or someone is and maybe understanding happens outside me outside time

just like becoming born from nothing is and

then I found this wrinkled scrap of thought and it said

welcome home

 
 

neil reid © september 2012

  
comments:
This poem becomes the “process” itself of the prompt idea, here laid out as a draft of string. A draft because I can’t do it better for now, because what it is was the result of over a week’s considering, evolving, yet when came was near in all one breath, just a few minutes in time (and more fuss would only make it less honest). Oft enough I’ve said, when you’re looking to resolve an image but see nothing other than your tangle of thoughts, that small dilemma, then take that process itself as the result – so my own medicine delivered here.

Neither is this my usual with words, any care for cleverness cast aside. Make it real came standing in front. What can we say to a child, the language, the understanding being all different then – but maybe so, even right now. Thus in the end, the process was circular and genuine.

  
Written for the We Write Poems prompt #122,  Words of Wisdom
In this case, meaning this – If you could go back in time and impart a bit of wisdom to your sixteen year old self, what would you say? An almost deceptively complex and powerful prompt I think.