OctPoWriMo Day Three - Beacuse of You

The prompt for day three is "sweet." The question was, "What brings sweetness to your life?" I spent my commute to work pondering this. What does bring sweetness in my life? Is it desserts? Was it the road trips that I used to take with my friend Joe? Was it the long quiet nature walks I would take during the weekend? I created a list in my mind, and  (all of these things do bring sweetness in my life) I realized what brings the biggest sweetness in my life are my friends who are my fellow AVM Survivors. I call them my AVM Survivor Family. My sixth anniversary as an AVM was on September 15th, and my AVM Survivor Family was there to remind me of who I am, and that I am more than my disability. It helps me to quiet the voices of others that tells me that I am stupid and pathetic.

The poem is written in a Swap Quatrain. I may edit it or add to it since I feel that there's more that could be added to it. Then again, I feel that way about most of the poems that I write.

I hope you enjoy.

Because of You

For so long I've searched for a safe place
Some understanding, a friendly face
A place where one like me can belong
I've searched for a safe place for so long

Much much rejection I always find
When I ache for comfort in this difficult time
If I am worth loving I often question
I always find much much rejection


You come along out of the blue, out of nowhere
Among the crowd where no one seems to care
 You help me to break that façade of strong
Out of the blue, out of nowhere you come along

Throughout all of my faults and flaws you loved me
You opened my heart and eyes so I can see
The person I truly am, which you always saw
You loved me throughout all of my faults and flaws

You helped me to repair my broken being
Find love for myself which was ever so freeing
I learned to see what what was truly there
My broken being you helped me to repair

My disability I am so much more than
There's many qualities I have which are grand
How can I thank you for helping me to see
I am so much more than my disability?

Because of you I have the strength to go on
In this recovery that does seem so long
Now shattered are those lies that say I'm pathetic and obtuse
I have the strength to go on because of you

- LWV

Diamond Falls...and an Update!

Well clearly I didn't make it through NaPoWriMo since a couple of things had come up during the month of April. Luckily, the prompts are still up on their website, so I can write poems inspired by those prompts and catch up. I hope to fare better during OctPoWriMo.

Today, I thought that I'd share one of my older poems, "Diamond Falls." That poem was inspired by a 2007 trip that I had taken to Pennsylvania to see the waterfalls at Ricketts Glen and Bushkill. Under the sunny sky the the waterfalls seemed like diamonds as they were glimmering under the sunlight. I thought that I'd post it because it will be published in the anthology, "The View from Here: Poetry to Help You Soar" this fall which has me excited and humbled. With that, I plan to publish a book of poems sometime in the next couple of years. We'll see how that goes.

Enjoy!


Diamond Falls

Little diamond rivulets falling down
Making such a peaceful sound
From rocks to shallow waters it hits
Falling down little diamond rivulets

They shimmer beneath the sun
Traveling down the stream one by one
Kissed by the sunlight as they glimmer
Beneath the sun they shimmer

A placid picture all around
From the falls to the stony grounds
To the trees on a canvas of azure
All around a placid picture


© 2008 L. Verella