Hello. In case you’re just joining us, I’ve been writing birthday poems, mostly. You can scroll down to read them.
Today I’m excusing myself from all rules.
This is not a birthday poem, as far as I can tell. This is not a structured poem. This is not written in any poetic form. This is not a children’s poem. And it does not rhyme (sorry, husband-of-mine).
This is what I have been thinking about when I meditate, when I’m trying not to think, but I want to tell you about how not thinking feels…
Pointing to that center in my meditation and labeling it, “there” takes me away from there…but I still want to point…
It’s the feeling of being released into the dark sky.
IT DOESN’T MATTER
WE ARE NOT MATTER
by April Halprin Wayland
Sometimes, I peel off my skin,
not in a painful way,
but in a tasty,
peeling-off-the-skin-of-a-sweet-green-grape sort of way
I peel all the skin off my fingers, my face, my chest
and step out of me
float out, really
released of the me in me,
lighter, softer, in a foggy sort of way,
drifting in the backyard,
merging with the persimmon leaves,
swallowing the swishy high grasses against the fence.
I froth, I’m a yard-sized cloud,
I’m foam on a giant latte, my house.
I umbrella over,
I am
air,
air,
air all around.
I know, I know.
It doesn’t matter
…it doesn’t matter.
Not the spread sheet I can’t use,
not the cell phone I need to reprogram but Verizon says it’s not registered,
not if Uncle Davie moves into a new apartment,
not the car that shouldn’t be ahead of me in traffic but is,
not your lips.
Your lips?
Well.
So nothing is matter
but it all matters in an effervescent sort of way,
an it’s-okay-if-I-just-swim-here-for-a-while way.
I want to swim here for a while,
swim in your lips
with your lips
this matters
© 2010 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved
Are you writing a poem a day, too? Even if you’re not, please leave a comment on www.TeachingAuthors.com (You can leave your comment after any of our posts…it doesn’t matter if I’m posting or one of the five other authors is. Just scroll down to the first place you can comment. I’d love to hear your thoughts~)