Shaky Foot Wisdom XXVI.
Oops, There Goes Passion Out the Window
February 18, 2021
For years and years, that seem like eons ago, since I first scratched poems upon a coffeehouse napkin in the smoky dark of the Vanguard Coffeehouse, my passion to create and express the range of feelings and experiences of my life has been aflame.
Scores of typed and even handwritten poems lay buried deep in the archives of a life well lived. I became a staunch advocate of promoting my own work across a Spoken Word CD and five collections of ecstatic poetry. And now when invited to do a Poetry Reading, my head says rush in while my heart says enough already. With nary a sound, my muse, my mistress, Passion, has flung herself out the window. I used to hear her whispers above the din and hum of existence, no matter what I was doing. And now, though surely her voice still rises, I may no longer have all the tools at my disposal that so adeptly enabled me to shower her blessings upon the blank page.
For that dear Parkinson’s, I do mourn. Though this whole journey seems fraught with further lessons in letting go and letting go again, in a cycle of both reclamation and relearning to do what I am meant to do, I remain grateful for the opportunity in each breath to remain present to what is.
And should that be simply brief moments of blissful expression that I can still capture in the elusive ship’s bottle that is a poem, then that has to be enough.
