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2005-01-19 - 5:46 p.m.

INCREDIBLE!!! THAT IS MY REACTION TO THIS POEM POSTED TODAY ON "POETRY DAILY" I often read the daily poem, but only rarely am moved by the incredible power of the words. Today was one such rare experience.

It would be a copyright violation to cut and paste the poem here.... So look it up if so inclined:

The Resistant Reader in the Age of Memoir: I

Jeredith Merrin
Ploughshares
Joy Harjo, Guest Editor
Volume 30, Number 4
Winter 2004-05

I think this really moved me as lately I have been pondering the life altering choices women in particular make: both mine and others choices. (I guess egged on by that stupid VA congressman eloquently labeled an "ASSHAT" in a few blogs who tried to pass some wacko legislation making it a misdemeanor for a woman to fail to report the end of a pregnancy within some stupidly short time frame to authorities! (Excuse my crappy memory of the sorid details of the idiot- but those are some I hope ALL soon forget.... leave it to say its pathetic, and while I haven't kept up to date on whether the proposed legistlation was killed yet- I surmise it HAS TO BE by now!)

I've chosen the path of marriage and many children, and I have friends who have chosen to be single and childless. Then I have friends with the other permetations of those choices: married and childless, Having children and choosing not to get married, choosing divorce....abortion etc... I thought the poem on Poetry Daily was really apt as thinking about those issues and how as a woman these choices often seem to factor so much into who we become.
I am a very different person today than I believe I was 15 years ago, or 10 years ago, or 5 years ago... I wonder who will I be in another 5 years? Another 10?
And yet- the core of me is still very much the same. I have the same BASIC value structure and beliefs that were formed when young- with refinement...I still have that inclination to be the devils advocate at every turn and think of the other side of an argument (just for fun!!)

And I seriously am one who can't say I have any regrets! REALLY.... Even seeming mistakes in life seem to all come full circle with reasonableness and meaning and value for me in the end-- if patient enough. So I cam't TRULY relate to the speaker in the poem. In a way the voice of the writer mocks my eternal optimism..... and it really moved me to wonder : HAve I no regrets because I am AFRAID to ever ADMIT to making poor choices? Afraid to really wonder if I have somehow missed out on something? yet those thoughts are so fleeting... as I am pleased to be a happy person who really feels self actualized. I think sometimes it is actually DIFFICULT for most people to truly embrace and accept real joy in life! Even when they see it in others- let alone accept it in themselves. I WAS Moved by the poem.... and it raises wonderful questions. But in the end I think its left me with that conclusion, which I think is it's implied point by the describing of trees.. . that those beautiful creations which ARE EVER changing from season to season, that sometimes seem dead yet spring forth with new growth and budding life.. .OVER and OVER... while at the core remain rooted and strong, and the essence of the tree is always what it is-- despite all. So too we are like those trees, and as such no one is unchanging and perfect. And to my point of the conclusion I got out of it: It is in the acceptance of who and what we are, and where we are, that one finds peace and happiness. Only then can there be no regrets. The irony-- that only when we realize WE ALL could say countless "What if..s" and that it is the essence of human nature to make those fallible errors we wish we hadn't, and only being OK with that less than perfect, ever changing being we are.... only then, does one let go of regrets.

Of course I'd love to know what the author REALLY was getting at in that poem! I'll read it again tommorrow and it might give me a totally different impression. In any case, it was a great piece that really moved me with thought and emotion. When reading I can't ask for anything more. I hope to write as well someday!

Here's the poetry daily link if you haven't yet checked out this gem of a site

http://www.poems.com/today.htm

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