Flower Power Dynamics

We begin this post with a couple of assertions, followed by a confession, and finally a bit of philosophy. The assertions are pretty direct. I am not a true poet, and I am not a good poet. I am, however, someone who enjoys poetry, who does occasionally try to write poetry and who wishes to be a good poet.

The confession sounds simple—even foolish—but it none-the-less true: Publishing or reading a poem that others will see, or hear and judge is terrifying. In a way it is the equivalent of undressing in a public place and being totally exposed.

I would not be surprised if a number of artists or writers would describe similar emotions. I imagine a painter who brings his or her paintings to be hung in a gallery for the first time. They alone know the effort and the love they have put into these works, and they now have to abandon and expose them to criticism from strangers who know nothing of their experience, and who may judge their best efforts as worthless. And as each painting is hung they may notice some miniscule flaw they only now see and can no longer correct. Terrifying.

As long as the painting, or in my case the poem remains safely in my folder or notebook it is beyond criticism and may be changed if I suddenly see a flaw, or find a better way to describe what I am trying to present. As long as the poem is in my hands alone it remains plastic and can be remolded as I feel necessary. Publish it and it is no longer malleable; it is frozen on the page and out of my control.

The Haiku (I often refer to my efforts as Hai-choo) that appears in the previous post was first written years ago; not long after my mom’s death in 1999. I have read it many times in the intervening years and almost without fail have changed it each time. In fact, I changed it twice before hitting the “publish” button on the blog site for the previous post.

Over the past few days I have re-written it more than once. Currently I favor this version:

Bowed head, crooked smile

remembering their love, loss—

parents too long gone.

Is the first version better than the second? How many versions have there been? I don’t know. Tonight, as I write this, I like the second version. Will I like it at another time? Will I think it was the best I could do? I won’t know until the next time I encounter it.

Even poems from that first shrunken folder that Dr. Adams handed back to me forty plus years ago have changed almost every time I re-encounter them. Even the few that have been published have changed.

All this I tell you to cause you to think about what courage it takes for an artist (musician, painter, sculptor, poet, etc.) to turn their work loose; to surrender control. Years ago, when I worked on an assembly line, I wanted what I did to be right, too. First I was taught the proper way to do the job, but there was back-up in case I erred. An inspector, a repairman, a tester—someone—could correct my effort if it fell short. 

 Worker on the Ft. Wayne, IN assembly line

Each of our actions, yours and mine, are often the same way. Sometimes our errors can be apprehended and corrected by ourselves or someone else. But many things we do cannot be fixed, cannot be undone, and they are frozen forever as part of our lives; our legacy. That, too, is terrifying.

What I hope and pray is that the poems change because I have changed; that I have grown and matured, or that I have learned from my previous errors and am making amends.

I want that in my life, too. I want to change—and in a positive way—so that I am a better person. I know that there are some things that cannot be fixed or undone or unsaid—they are frozen in time and I must live forever with them. But I also know that much can be changed and that in some ways my life must be like the poems in that shrunken folder and it must change as I grow and mature.

In a book by Emerson Colaw, Beliefs of a United Methodist Christian, he wrote:

“The worth of an idea is never measured merely by the degree to which we attain but by the direction it gives life.  The flower, reaching for the sun, never reaches its goal except in responding to the upward pull; the dynamic of life and growth is within the flower.  We may never in this lifetime attain all that is implied in the ideal, ‘You, therefore must be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect,’ but in reaching toward that we have within us the dynamic of growth.”

 

Reaching for the Sun

This, I think, is as good a description of what I pray my life can be—that I respond to an “upward pull” and grow dynamically. I shall never be a great poet or a great person, but that is what I want to be reaching toward, however imperfectly.