when you stumble upon something you wrote but don't remember why

Often I'll come across something I've written in one of my journals and I'll think, "Did I write that?  I don't remember writing that."  I always like when I'm writing and I reach that place where it's almost like something is writing through me.  It's me but it's also not me.  Days later when I re-read what I've written it's almost unrecognizable.  It's like its separate and apart from me and yet it still contains pieces of me.  I'm not familiar with the voice or the words and I wonder where it all came from.  When I find something I've written that really feels foreign I can usually name my frame of mind or place what was going on in and around me at the time by reading a few pages before and/or after the piece in question.  But last week I stumbled on something I don't remember writing at all and unlike other mystery writings this wasn't in a journal.  I found it on my computer.  I don't remember writing it or why I wrote it--if there was a purpose or a reason or if I was just getting something out that needed to be said.  It was interesting to find something I'd written that didn't have any frame of reference.  It was like finding an unexpected treat waiting to be discovered.

************************************************

I am the stillness of time, when God

breathed into the wind and called her woman

I am a prayer to Mary, a longing for a God who understands,

a God whose face is like my own

I am the memory of a great grandmother I never knew

but whose hands pressed against my mother’s belly

and blessed my life before I was born

I am my grandmother’s hands, always in service

offering herself with

great love to a world that doesn't’t understand her

dreams and desires

I am my mother’s laughter,

sometimes lost in the past

but which still peeks out at the corner

of her mouth and makes me wonder,

“Who is she?  Where did that girl go?”

I am this present moment, filled abundantly

with brokenness and hope, pushing

against the earth of oppression to bloom

into the sacred and wild

I am the light in my son’s brown eyes,

playful, innocent, full of wonder,

alive and fearless, eager to get up again and again,

not knowing the words can’t or should

I am the tears of those who cannot help themselves,

who know too well the cage of hopelessness,

the chains of powerlessness

I, too, am your sister and I weep with you

I am the depth and breath of woman

I am all that word holds

I am the eyes of the world, I am the poetry and prose of life

I am the story of all women, I am their glory

I am the embodiment of the feminine divine

moving in mystery through a changing life,

unfolding, taking one step after another

into a journey of becoming, a dance of being,

a flight of wholeness

Comments

[Jamie]

My bet is you channeled Inspiration directly into this gorgeous work, Michelle. And so when you looked with the eyes of daylight, the sound of the her voice, your voice, was fresh and new. You have such gifts.

[jenica]

would you mind if i linked to this post in an upcoming post of my own? i just love everything about this poem!

[Marilyn]

It's beautiful, Michelle! (I feel that way about poetry. I truly forget them as soon as I write them, so it's always a bit astonishing to read them later and feel so surprised by something I have no memory of writing.)

[deirdre]

Wonderful poem - it reads like a blessing or prayer.

That moment you write about - when it feels like something is writing through you - that's the truest gift of writing. It doesn't happen often, but when it does there's nothing like the joy that washes over me when it's done.

[angela]

a gift you had made, tucked away until today. amazing.
so glad i got to read this :)

[angela]

a gift you had made, tucked away until today. amazing.
so glad i got to read this :)

[jenica]

see... this is what i've been missing of you.

i can't tell you how much i needed this poem today,because it resonates with what i *need* to be feeling. i could relate to every magical prose. this is perfect.

thank you beautiful lady!

[ceanandjen]

Breathe-takingly beautiful. I am literally sitting before my computer screen quite speechless and shaking my head after taking that in...breathing it in, really. Wow. Thank you for sharing this magic with us.xoxoxoxo

[JanePoe (aka Deborah)]

Wonderful poem ... I was reading something recently that said we have two writers inside us - the conscious and the unconscious - you tapped into the latter and she's another wonderful part of you. Peace and love, JP/deb

[Star]

This is such a moving piece; I can't imagine writing it and then forgetting. Perhaps it was written so you could find it again at just the right time...

[Frida]

Stunning. You can write things like that and then foget about it? I'd be so pleased with myself I would have it pinned up on the fridge.

Stunning, really!

[carolee]

what a blessing that you wrote this.
what a blessing that you found this.
what a blessing that you shared this.

thank you

this is especially stunning:

I am the memory of a great grandmother I never knew
but whose hands pressed against my mother’s belly
and blessed my life before I was born