Continuing with poetry, I offer a piece I wrote nearly 40 years ago. Rooted in experience, born in contemplation, the words came as a gift–as words and ideas so often do. No explanation needed. Either you get it or you don’t. As agonizing as life sometimes seems, we can find within ourself whatever we need. We can hold our own hand and, in so doing, an embracing path appears. This poem has been waiting for a painting to hold it. Now it has one. I finished the painting this week.
Sometimes I Have To Hold My Own Hand
Sometimes I have to hold my own hand
Be my own mother
Pick myself up when I fall
Remind me to go to bed when I’m tired
Or tell myself to eat when I don’t want to.
Sometimes I have to hold my own hand
Be my own mother
When my head is too full
And the writing flows emotional
Or the tears come.
Sometimes I have to hold my own hand
Be my own mother
When high-pitched insides scream
I can’t hear the mother in me over the waves
I crawl in me
Drag
Bleed
In constant cold stream
Over jagged rocks
Stumbling in imperfection
Grasping railings that aren’t really there
Pulling myself up through illusions
That flutter like bats
And I can’t find my mother
Until
I crash
Explode
Into the generous arms
Of one giant little black woman cleaning halls and caring.
Sometimes I Have To Hold My Own Hand, Oil/Mixed Media, 16” x 16” gallery edge ampersand panel, $875 by Gwendolyn Evans
Artwork: Sometimes I Have To Hold My Own Hand, Oil/Mixed Media, 16” x 16” gallery edge ampersand panel, $875.