Lists

I often make lists of what I need to do. Sticky-notes upon sticky notes are haphazardly dispersed in my planner, each with a list of "to-do's for today," "to-do's for tomorrow," "to-do's for next week." I neatly write out the "to" to "do" and put a little underlined blank beside it. A nook waiting for a checkmark.

About two or three weeks before the end of every semester I make a list. Its a giant To-Do List, typically taking up a full sheet of notebook paper and sometimes a second column. I make the list, I cry a little on the inside, and then I make it happen. These lists of tangible assignments and obligations help me to organize my workload.

But I wonder about looking at my life why I can't just write down my goals and follow them. Its because I have very little clarity on my future goals and aspirations. But in light of some recent struggles I have gained just enough clarity to give me peace. I made a list to live by and I've memorized it. :)

I've never been brave enough to make a "bucket list" or any kind of life goal list, mostly because I don't trust myself to finish anything that I start. Here is my list that I want to act upon and continue until I die.


love people.
love God.
write some pretty words along the way.




I know it is abstract. But it is enough for me. And in a world that is constantly shifting and hurting...these are three things I want to be a part of me always.


muchlove.

nikkiraye

Hunting for Inspiration

Today I went hunting for some inspiration in my writing. I made a point that I was going to detach myself from my typical schooling duties and have some time for me. I decided today, that I was going to breath.

aaaah. Breathing. Rest. Any other gear besides rushing and procrastinating (I live in those two gears as a college student).

Today was a good day for breathing. We just had 2 days of heavy rain and then here comes a Sunday afternoon with warm sunshine, brisk winds, and a sky full of white puffy clouds...it could not have been more perfect for me.

I left my apartment and explored some places on my campus that I've never been to before. I brought my camera, my journal, and a book. Well, I forgot a pen, subsequently there was no journaling while I was out, but I filled up a small SD card. So why did I call this little adventure hunting? Because today I made myself seek out beautiful things. I made myself turn off school mode and just live.

I went hunting for inpiration, describing things that I saw to myself and letting small things catch my eye again. I miss seeing the world around me as poetic. Beautiful things right infront of your face become a blurr if you rush around all of the time. With all that said, breathing is good and if I can't see inspiration in my daily life right now, well then I better go looking for it...why walk through life and not be inspired by it?

Here are a couple of pictures that I just found pretty. They aren't super fancy photos, they were just beautiful when I saw them. I'll explin why underneath:








I was napping on a bench and reading on and off, when I noticed this tree in the woods. Its beautiful! Its one lone purple tree in a completley green wooded area. I rarely gender trees, but this tree is the Helen of these woods. Royal and elegant. Also, when I walked underneath her, the ground was littered with purple bell flowers, like rose pedals on a church aisle. I sort of felt like a bride walking over them. I have walked past this tree multiple times and never saw it as much of anything, but today as I inentionally rested and allowed myself to be renewed I saw this tree a little different, and maybe a little clearer.



I see poetry everyday, even when I don't recognize it. What I hope becomes more of a habit in my life is this hunting for inspiration, an intentionality towards seeing beauty. Hopefully seeing a tree for more than just a tree will strengthen my vision in seeing people as more than just people. Typical hunting for animals all ends the same way...with a carcass. But my hunting...oh, it ends with ideas and ideas make change.

muchlove.

Peace in the Violence

One of the most poetic attributes of my God is His ability to speak through contradictions. I'm beginning to see this everywhere, that God is not bound by what I consider 'good sense'. I find it quite beautiful how through what I see as inconsistency, God brings truth. Lately I have experienced violence within close proximity to the ones I love most dearly. It hurts me to see people hurt each other. Although I know there is so much violence I ignore in my world, I'm reffering to violence and chaos within family units. Yet, here I sit on Good Friday and I see that this is a day of violence. This is a day of pain, punishment, and death. This is a day of redemption, love, and life. Today Jesus Christ paid my debt, He endured tortures and shames that I could nevery fully wrap my sinful mind and hands around. Today is the epitome of peace in the midst of violence. I find it easy to feel hopeless when I think about how much we hurt each other as humanity. But, MY GOD is a God who brings peace despite the violence. God not only brings life, but overcomes death. Today is that day.


I don't have a fully developed, lengthy, and inspirational point to this. Just that I see hope in violence...and that is poetry.

Muchlove.

nikkiraye

seeing

When I first told my father that I wanted to major in creative writing he was genuinely disappointed. He scoffed at my aspirations to pursue writing. His reason was simple. He loves me too much for me to gain an education and end up as a “starving artist.” My dad sees so many roadblocks and possible failures in the instable world of anything labeled creative. I’ve thought about this, about what it is to be a failure as a writer. What if I really don’t get it? Or if I don’t have that thing? You know…that thing that you can’t gain through effort, the little piece of the art-making puzzle that is nestled in your core when you’re born.
With all of those questions, I waste a lot of time wondering who I am rather than just being who I am. I spend time comparing myself to and aspiring to be like other people. And through this I have seen a type of writer that is far more sad than the “starving artist” that my father fears for me. Its far more despairing to be writer who is too busy or distracted to write. It is a cruel and unedifying type of self-denial and I have found myself caught in this whirlwind of everything before what I love. It is far much better to be a mediocre writer or an unappreciated writer than to be a writer…who doesn’t freakin’ write. Then, well, you’re not a writer by action…if that makes any sense. My distance from the act of writing makes me question my love for craft, or maybe just my discipline. My lack of intentionality or really, my indecision on what to truly focus on has made me -- confused.
The title of this blog is “I See Poetry Everyday.” But, sadly, that’s very untrue at the present moment. Poetry is within sight, I know this. But I’m moving so quickly, its all a blur. I pray for clarity of vision and the pace of a poet who stops to SEE. I miss seeing. Instead of placing a poem in here that is newer, I think I will revert back to “changing with the leaves” because I am obviously still trying to tear down the façade. My inward Autumn season is just longer than the earths. But being that I am seeing daffodils on the side of the road, Spring has come here, and it will come in me as well. Nothing stops the seasons, inside or out.

"changing with the leaves" --->
http://poetrymattersgwu.blogspot.com/2009/12/goodbye-fall.html

:) I just realized that I said “I see the daffodils.”

Changing with the Leaves

So we are all staring at the grand backside of the Fall Season, soon the celebrate the Incarnation and gain some much needed rest. I've noticed that I have been growing on an inner personal level since the fall colors began to settle in and come alive, I guess I'm always growing in some regards, but anyways. I've thought about how much of a show I make transitional times in my life, just like the trees, because change is so very vulnerable to me. Well, I guess my purpose is to share a poem, I shouldn't explain it, but let is speak for itself.

muchlove.



Changing with the Leaves

Warmth once robed them in green safety,
a garment to veil skinny arms and
dry cracked skin, hidden broken twigs--
a robe of life that inevitably will die.

But not without a fiery fight.
Colors cry before their robe’s cold death.
Trees bear with pride their veil’s ending life
as Orion calls them to undress, to reveal

contorted nakedness, to strip away
the green show of past warm days,
to parade a twisted and tangled frame.
Every detail exposed, no blemish blended.

Summer’s fine show dried and crinkled
beside roots, crumbled under feet.
Only what’s underneath can stand
the loss of heat and light, a skeleton

that endures the lengthening night.

And now I, though growing cold and
covered in warming wool, know that
I must be naked in my clothes, and bear
my own twisted, tangled frame.

For my green show has had it’s day.



*photo by Micheal Melford, National Geographic 2005
http://seabed.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0511/images/wallpaper_lg.1.3.jpg

And the award goes to...

"Exam Week" for being the worst week of my semester! Congratulations...you have very good timing.

So, within the next hour I and my peers will be sharing with one another the inner workings of our poetry matters project. At this point all I have is this blog and a facebook status survey. I was supposed to go to a prision in Spartanburg, South Carolina this past Monday and recite poetry, something I've done before and really enjoy doing. But I have not heard my real voice since Sunday afternoon. I have only read in the coffeeshop once or twice this semester, which is less than ususal.

So here is the zinger of my presentation, if I don't get my voice back in the next hour, I may have to present this via interpretive movement because I can't even take the less than desirable amount of poetry sharing and spice it up with my skills of language. bleagh!

I have been silenced. What's a girl to do?

I tried to bring the world a little bit of poetry, but maybe what these circumstances did was bring poetry closer to me. Because right now, all I want to do in my silence is write....which means ofcourse I finally get super inspired the busiest and last week of school.

I miss my voice. I miss general health. I miss rest. I need this week to be over. I need my mother. I NEED POETRY.


muchlove,
Nikki Raye

Every Day I See Poetry

This Summer I worked over by the coast of North Carolina in a little place called Lake Waccamaw. As a chaplain intern I basically built relationships with the children and the staff at the Children's Home that I worked at, along with normal church function stuff. There was another intern that joined me this summer, his name was Jon. Jon is a cool guy, and fellow English Major, so we had a little in common. But, what I want to talk about and what this has to do with poetry is about a little comment he made to me a couple times over the summer.

"Thats poetic, Nikki."

Being in a new environment and bombarded with free time like I've never had before set my vision off in a way I can't explain. Everything in Lake Waccamaw is beautiful and the loniliness I struggled with by being in a new place was comforted by things I would have never noticed before. So as I forced Jon to listen to my ramblings and observations (bless his heart) sometimes what I had to say seemed poetic. Ironically I didn't write one poem over the entire summer except for on my last day there. Most of my summer's poetry was found in nature, here are a couple of the things that became poetic to me this summer:

Puddles: Right after a summer shower the puddles would be clear and still. I typically mope about after it rains, until one day I looked into a puddle and noticed that the blue sky and fluffy white clouds were reflected in it.

Leaves: Did you know that magnoilia leaves smell like pepper and citrus? They do...go sniff one. I'm pretty sure that is what God smells like. The odd things is, you have to tear the leaf before you can smell it's beautiful aroma. hhmmm.

Rain: As mentioned before, rain in the summer makes me happy(unlike rain in the cold which I do not find as fun.) My appreciation for walking barefoot on warm rainy days grew exponentially, and my sneaking out to the back of the building where I lived to watch storms at night. And this is it's poetry for me: I sat under the awning fascinated so much by the water droplets and the difference in how the fell on the concrete and the grass that I ignored the 15 giant spiders that surrounded the top of my head. It was hard, but worth it.

There were many others from clouds to the color pink to specific children. I guess the point is that I have learned that poetry is everywhere and that if we just slow down and look around we can see it. I challenge you to take a day and try to find poetry...it is out there. While you are at it, comment and tell me where you see poetry.


Worship by Senses

Wind shifts the bronze waters
before me, envelopes my senses.

The smell of living beings
beneath the sun glittered surface
rises from wakes and peaks and
ripples of this shallow body.

Casting shadows, ever moving
bits of light, shape, and angles
move my eyes in all directions.

A continual hum of moving air
in my ears, only broken by
slaps and sloshes against the
pillars of the pier.

And my skin. touched. everywhere
exposed. at the same time.
Wind sends me into sensory
overload, pushing in my nose,
drying my eyes, tangling my
hair, cooling my skin,

every nerve in my body stands to
read my surroundings, observing,
collecting every detail, experiencing
a dance between water and air
in awe.