Words

Poetry Contributed by Gretchen Volenik

Multi-media art journal by Angela McMullen

Words

It amazes me how much I love words, Phrases and books; How the written word touches something so deep in me. It makes me stop and ponder, And turn the thoughts over and over in my mind; How I find hidden meaning and truths That I didn’t know were part of my soul;

How words come alive and bring the senses into play: The smell of broccoli left in the refrigerator a day too long, The red geranium bud that is just appearing And reminds me of moist lipstick; How the blanket of white snow covering the ground And icing the trees calls me out to walk away from everything And disappear in to the woods of a frozen world;

How words entice me to be who I am, Find my voice and create my world; How I ache for something so deep inside that has no name And yet remembers something it never knew; How even as I long for words to deliver my soul, I know that there are no words to capture what I want to express: The feelings I have that are beyond words, Of sacrament and beauty, Of understandings that I know and I am, Of what light looks like when it is made of pure love, And how silence can usher you into a place that doesn’t belong to this world.

And so I write because I have to, Because to not write will destroy why I came here in the first place.

I’m getting older. I don’t have a lot of time left. I don’t want to die realizing that I never took myself seriously, That I never honored what was in me, That I never nurtured what I was given, That I down played and belittled it and felt it could never be good enough. What was the point? Whom was I writing for and what did I want from it? Now I know it is for me and no one ever needs to know Or care why I wrote or what I had to say.

I live, write and contemplate the universe from my cabin in the woods.

I was born and brought up in nature and so try to live as reverently and gently on the earth as I can.

My writing is given to me by the universal energy that connects us all.