Terry Tempest Williams

“Writers break black letters out of lead and line them up on white sheets of paper and ask others to read the sentences we have created for ourselves” (Finding Beauty in a Broken World 19).

question of the heart

What do you do with a heart that has stopped beating for love?

This is not a multiple choice question,
For your information.

For your information, also,
It's not really your heart I'm musing about;
It's mine.
You would have probably guessed as much anyway
By my tone of voice
And by the way I've placed my right hand
In position above where I assume my heart to be.

I assume
Because I've never actually opened the cavity in which it lies.
I've bled its blood,
But I've never seen its pounding rhythms.
Only felt.
But the feeling deeper than touch that could have been is gone, vanished.
Could have been.

Like I said,
What do you do?
What do I do?

I've stopped living for love
And as I sank into sleep last night
It was this image which made my eyes blink awake for one last moment.

The image was this:
A massive sledgehammer in both my hands.
I wield the end of it like an expert.
Standing, I take in a lungful of air
Then set myself down, lying on the ground.
It's done, I think.
And in response my force catapults the hammer's thick end upon my heart.
Bones offer no protection.

But I seek no protection, so it's fine.

I'm muted and at peace.

Le fin [de mon coeur].

3 swing shots from 20 may 05

I'm in the mood to write, but only have 19 minutes and I have absolutely 0 inspiration at the moment. So I'm writing the following based on the above 3 pictures. No promises. Ok, maybe there's 1 promise, but it's pretty much a promise to myself. Write, Lyn, and you'll feel better. Somehow. Eventually. Not that I'm feeling bad. I just know I'll feel better and I don't have to promise anything to anyone else. And I guess there's the promise that minutes keep ticking and now I've only 15 to get to some real writing.


Swing.

Swings.

The lush summertime green looks so soft I'd like to touch it for awhile.
Because today, yesterday, and likely tomorrow, I'll step outside and fill my lungs with mucky gray air.
Waiting for a storm now to blow it all away.

Sophie.
Liza Beth.
Josh.

The children of my summers.

This is the beginning of summer before my mission.
In fact, glancing at the date listed on the picture folder, it's Andrew's birthday. He's in France somewhere in that year 2005. I have five days till entering the MTC.

This is the sharing of laughter.
This is the pushing.
This is the swinging.
This is the sharing of smiles.

I push you.
Higher.
Higher.

Again.
Again.

My mom said once that I'm a child of summer. I agreed with her while thinking, how strange, though, Mother, for I was born on a winter's day.
I despise not winter, but I so delight in summer.
And days like today make me crave its warmth.

Would you look at that grass?

These are the kids who filled me up with love.
Summer nights.
Afternoons.
Mornings even.

Picking raspberries.
Chalking the driveway.
Reading books.
Hide-and-go-seeking.



Swing, little one.
Move away from me,
And then come nearer.

Smile at me, little one.
Stretch your arms,
And yawn.

Swing, middle one.
Hide your smile with your lips,
But I can still see it in your eyes.

Swing, middle one.
Grow so tall,
And soon your feet will scrape the ground.

Swing, oldest one.
Up in the tree
You always climb.

Smile, your silly smile.
Arms wrapped round yourself.
If you fall, the grass catches softly, kindly.

Pray for me little ones, like I know you did.
For I left you once on a long journey.
How I missed the sound of your prayers,
Praying for Andrew.

I pray for you.

As we keep swinging.

As we keep growing
Up and older.

Higher and higher.

Again and again.

Pray always.
Never stop smiling.




And with 1 minute left, c'est le fin de quelque chose. Something to come back to and explore perhaps or perhaps something to leave forever. Who knows?

"You can see anything you want, yessir, but it's the words that sing, they soar and descend. I bow to them. I love them, I cling to them, I run them down, I bite into them, I melt them down. I love words so much. The unexpected ones. The ones I wait for greedily or stalk until suddenly they drop." -Pablo Neruda

Just a lovely quote from a more than lovely writer...

wishful thinking

Darkness outside the windows states
The sun has set.

Yet we sit inside
With lights on.

And, Mother, you create even more
By setting ablaze the candles.

They stick up out of the rhubarb pie--
My birthday request.

No, I did not request one more candle
For the annual addition requires none of my persistance.

It's the rhubarb I've desired--
This pie.

Now these candles call my attention.
They await my extinguishing breath.

I assume everyone singing to me wonders what sort of wish creation
Occurs inside my head.

I feel confusion, not a light wishful-making feeling.
I know not for what to wish.

There are too many things.
Too many people.
Too many situations.
Too many

And I'm one.
I'm one with one more year
Behind me.
Ahead of me?

Smoke.

buried

Friends we were.
We played in the wind.
We decided on the stem of a leaf
To grow tall and strong and old together.

We buried the acorn an inch too deep,
And now my fingernails are black
From trying to scratch it out.

I want to hold it.
I want to remember you.
Remember you holding it.

You smacked it to your forehead,
Pronouncing yourself king.
I made the leaves
Flutter and fly all around you.

The acorn rested suspended between our palms
Wet with the leaves' dew.

Two rocks scraped out the hole
In which to bury the acorn.
The dirt cast up into two piles.
Yours and mine.
Mine and yours.

The hole dug,
You pressed the acorn to my lips
Then placed it upon yours.
Two satisfying smacks
And we laid it to rest
Before tumbling the earth back upon it.

Our hands brown and smelling like creation.
We didn't wipe them on our pants
But shared the dark fingerprints on cheeks, nose, and chin.

It felt like the sun never set on that day.
But feeling betrays.
For here I kneel, desiring to exhume this stubborn acorn,
The remnants of that day--
Even that day's setting sun.

to do

Scrape the sky and come away with a handful of blue. Sing to the stars and sleep in peace. Walk in the river and carry away pockets full of water.