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 Review #4765112 |
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| (5.0)    HAPPY WDC ACCOUNT ANNIVERSARY!!! from "Anniversary Reviews"  Celebrating your writing this month with a review. Happy Account Anniversary Meg  ,Oh, wow! Should I end there?  It's been awhile, Meg, one of the first I could call friend here and unto felt a kinship. We may be of the same ilk, so many time zones apart and yet our words for each other seemed to ring true. This poem is giving me an inkling of how it was in those days. I feel not much has changed except for the lack of your constant presence. And since you're poem is about catching up with old friends, especially related in the third verse of this beautiful poem, I offer something of myself within a review, like a letter. Do you remember our first days in the Angel Army? We were challenging each other to be the top reviewer that month, egging one another on. I was a bit rough around the edges and 'newbie' at that time. iKïyå§ama  was asking something like, 'do I have to break you two up'? You responded so well and wish I could remember how you framed it. Best I recall, we we're getting our feet wet and just motivating the other higher. I conceded to you that month. I could barely keep up. But, it was fun.You responded in review to one of my poems with a poem of your own that to this day I proudly display with "The Other Side" , with your poem link, shining on my front page so others can read about a little white moth and the friend with advice to steer clear of the flames of attraction (ironic). Many friends have come and gone as I squatted here, kept writing, seeking purpose, a higher calling. I get frustrated at times, but the joy of self-discovery through words has rewarded. With your anniversary this month, I want to celebrate you with as many reviews as possible in the next week. I have a brother who passed in the spring and will celebrate his memory this coming weekend with family and friends, hopefully to retire permanently as family eulogist. I joke that I might record my own eulogy. Levity in darkness has served best. Your poem today was like a portal to the past that I had to push through, looking for that something to drive me toward a goal to get out of this month alive. Your traditional rhyming poem "Invalid Item" personifies the Meg I knew best. Like family, it serves me with a nudge and knowing wink. I close my eyes (before I type) when I relate, your poem describes everything I've ever sought in life: community, connection, a reason to sit for a chat and fondly look back at the old times. My brother had that. I think he was the last shining beacon in our family and leaves a great hole to fill, which was pretty wide after my mom passed 25 years ago. She left a husband and four boys, was our glue. A year later, dad with cancer couldn't go on anymore. That sent Mike right to my arms and we comforted one another because we knew the two of us were in a spot and lifted each other up. And then he had bouts with cancer off and on for 15 years. And, here I stand and wonder...what next?Does a man get drunken at the bar and start a row? I think I can and have, without a whiff of the pub or without any intent. But, reading your poem reminds me what I set course for on my own 'long and winding road' which intones the Beatles in your opening verse. "Each of us must wander," hits me as very true. We can't be told what to do or where to set our sights, lift, a sort of mindless drift. And the bumps along the way, so true. I've had more than my share and now know why, undiagnosed since youth with a few afflictions that people around here may tire of my going on about. But, it's an epiphany, catharsis to find out what one blindly wrestles with for decades, have people describe you any where from brute to daft. That second verse just continues to echo my life journey. It's plain to see and yet so many seem to ignore it when it comes to this process of life we navigate, hope to arrive at a golden sunset intact, alive and thankful. Your mention of a 'backward pace' gave pause, intones my own mantra when life holds me back, when I aver, "two steps forward, one step back," to remind myself there are hiccups, unpleasant delays. When you say, "we gain," it's hopefully true. Do we add it up like math, no. But, you get a feel for what is right and what is wrong and which has worth and what to put stock in. And the worth of life isn't always what it's measured to be if we don't invest right. And even if we haven't, how to take stock of it as we move forward toward that line? The third verse for me is unrealized, feels true, because of family and people like my brother. We should have old friends to meet and stories to reiterate and perhaps one little detail we never knew comes out and have more perspective, more laughs. It's not as easy to walk up to an old house and knock on a door to find friendly reception. Rather, it's a text, an email or some 'likes' on social media. My brother wasn't about that. We wrote letters. Fewer than should have been exchanged. The internet sucked the marrow of our kinship out of me and didn't give as much as I could. Therein, is true regret. Maybe, I was afraid to near him and thoughts about death. But, we did give it a try, living one hundred miles apart. I keep thinking if he wasn't so remote at his home in the woods, I could have been daily. And that's the one person I wanted to keep in touch with for the last 20 years. He was real, encouraging, always concerned for others. He gave what he could, even while he struggled and could no longer sleep over at our house with his physician's visits in our town. Best I can do now is lay that chapter of my life to rest and stare blankly at the wall and wonder the future. That's where I get to your final verse. It's a real slugger. My life could last another 40 years or more. I think more than half will be in good health, if cancer will butt out. I might be fully blind and without much hearing, given the current course of life. I won't give in to old age easily. Yet, the poem with fondness for this final destination feels like fantasy for me. I spend a lot of time in reflection and consider a world and where it is headed with two I shall leave behind in it. I don't see a lot of hopeful outcomes, but life has a way of finding positive change. Losing hope and faith might be the downfall of many around the world now. But, that's not the point of the poem. And here I am an old friend calling and wondering if I even played a game called life, if I even knew how to play. In my unusual condition, I intoned others, mimicked and tried to seem human among them. I couldn't trust my natural response to anything unfamiliar. But, I knew someone like you. I felt here, early on, I found extended family. Like my life now, I'm losing all of those who could shoulder me until I found my own feet. I'm reminded I could walk in other's shoes, to know them better.  . I've walked in thousands of shoes, millions, if not all at once. It can sap the strength of a man, yet I trudge on with mother's obstinance and dad's brashness in my back pocket, just in case. But, dad doesn't get to play. He doesn't play in the world we have today.So, akin to what you suggest, I say 'leave it all out on the field' when you play the game, whether right or wrong. Rules are changing everywhere that keeps us off balance, weakens our spirit, possibly divides from within. I know I will find resolution in the end. I just need to redirect. Your poem is like a beacon to a little moth that still strikes the glass, in love with that flame. I'll get to it somehow, or just enjoy the view of this dry wall. Great to see your words on these lighted pages again. Hoping well, ~~~  Brian ~~~  WDC Anniversary and Angel Army Reviewer   My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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