"Small" (a poem)
Preparing to go off to HAI L2 this evening (THANK YOU to everyone who has contributed!) I went looking for some poetry to bring with me. Looks like this one never got posted to LJ. In keeping with my intent to actually use this space as a JOURNAL (whodathunkit??) and the fact that my poetry is a very sure journal of my life, sometimes more depthful that my "regular" writing, I thought it best to include it here.
Enjoy. :)
Dawn
"Small"
I'm feeling small today
tender, new,
the slightest touch on my sensitive skin an ecstasy of exquisite torture
my insides echoing my outsides, so all I want to do is run to you, and
hide inside your great arms
a small, quivering thing,
longing for illusory safety at the gate of the dragon's jaws.
"Be big! Think outside the box! Own your magnificence!"
Words well-meaning
meaning wellness to someone--
not me
not today.
Me? I'm small today.
Burrowing beneath
twitching nose under blankets
investigating inward.
Finding my center
centering my findings on the smallest bit of me
the tiny spark of me that thinks someday, I could be big...
but
not yet.
Not today.
Today, I am small
and celebrating smallness:
the gift of a fine sable-hair brush
the curl of a tiny shell
the softest whisper of breeze
a tiny speckled egg
the hope of tomorrow deep in the heart of today.
Someday, perhaps
I'll be big:
Enormous branches lifting skyward
Winds vast as the plains
Oceans of pleasure, expansive waters of life
strength of mountains.
But not yet
not today
not until I grow, bit by bit
aware that the largest creatures are made up of the smallest cells
and that each tiny atom owns a piece of the magnificence
just as surely as the magnificence could not exist without each
molecule, each electron
and each bit of space between that is as important as each bit of solidity
small, small, and smaller
down to invisible indivisibility.
I will grow, bit by bit
until at last I have grown so much, and fitted so much of myself into
such a small space,
that one day--
when even I least expect it--
all the energy of that magnificence so long contained
might burst out in one great flash of explosive energy
all the greater for the tension and the pressure that came before
a flowering of fireworks, bold and brilliant across the sky
all the smallnesses contained within the vastness of my being
the one inextricably a part of the other in an unending chain of generation.
But for now,
for now
I'm still quite small
though quietly growing
surreptitiously changing
gestating here, as safe as I imagine myself to be (as you allow me to be)
within the circle of your arms
one small squirrel
with a dream of wings.
--Dawn Davidson
(copyright 1/21/2010)
Enjoy. :)
Dawn
"Small"
I'm feeling small today
tender, new,
the slightest touch on my sensitive skin an ecstasy of exquisite torture
my insides echoing my outsides, so all I want to do is run to you, and
hide inside your great arms
a small, quivering thing,
longing for illusory safety at the gate of the dragon's jaws.
"Be big! Think outside the box! Own your magnificence!"
Words well-meaning
meaning wellness to someone--
not me
not today.
Me? I'm small today.
Burrowing beneath
twitching nose under blankets
investigating inward.
Finding my center
centering my findings on the smallest bit of me
the tiny spark of me that thinks someday, I could be big...
but
not yet.
Not today.
Today, I am small
and celebrating smallness:
the gift of a fine sable-hair brush
the curl of a tiny shell
the softest whisper of breeze
a tiny speckled egg
the hope of tomorrow deep in the heart of today.
Someday, perhaps
I'll be big:
Enormous branches lifting skyward
Winds vast as the plains
Oceans of pleasure, expansive waters of life
strength of mountains.
But not yet
not today
not until I grow, bit by bit
aware that the largest creatures are made up of the smallest cells
and that each tiny atom owns a piece of the magnificence
just as surely as the magnificence could not exist without each
molecule, each electron
and each bit of space between that is as important as each bit of solidity
small, small, and smaller
down to invisible indivisibility.
I will grow, bit by bit
until at last I have grown so much, and fitted so much of myself into
such a small space,
that one day--
when even I least expect it--
all the energy of that magnificence so long contained
might burst out in one great flash of explosive energy
all the greater for the tension and the pressure that came before
a flowering of fireworks, bold and brilliant across the sky
all the smallnesses contained within the vastness of my being
the one inextricably a part of the other in an unending chain of generation.
But for now,
for now
I'm still quite small
though quietly growing
surreptitiously changing
gestating here, as safe as I imagine myself to be (as you allow me to be)
within the circle of your arms
one small squirrel
with a dream of wings.
--Dawn Davidson
(copyright 1/21/2010)