Paging through some old papers last night, I came across this poem I wrote for English class back in fall of 2005. [I changed one word in the poem that kept getting on my nerves.] The assignment was to write a long essay based on a list of (I thought) convoluted technical stipulations that answered the question Who Are You? After a lot of struggling, I was fortunate that my teacher allowed me to write the assignment as a poem, since, I reasoned, that is how I could best express myself. Here is what I turned in. I felt vindicated when she told me that she cried.

I’m raindance rainsong pounding loud
I’m hallelujah to a crowd
I’m a great blue taking flight
a pirouette
I’m second sight
I’m the reading between the lines
I’m thinking out loud
I’m the warning signs
I’m Prussian blue, emerald green
and every shade in between
I’m swirling petals, silk on concrete
I’m a prairie plant, roots twelve feet deep
I’m overflow
an oasis of light
some people, they can’t stand the quiet
east coast west coast jive the swing
holding out all year for spring
I’m an asterisk*     *a little more
a weightless voice and solid core
panoramic Aspen scenery
a clean sheet of paper, possibility
I’m a scrubby thorny brambly briar
I’m spreading fast like wildfire
I’m the word on the tip of your tongue
I’m space to breathe and room to run
I’m a lush green canopy
a thousand shadow symphony
I’m muddy water
I’m overcast
worn away, filling in the cracks
I’m earth I’m dirt I’m tumbleweed
cascading
falling to your knees
I’m a gypsy
I’m a shooting star
a luminescent battle scar
backroad barefoot energy
I’m clear quick motion, rising heat
the resonance of violins
and eyes that you could walk right in
restless mist
imagination
stormclouds rushing
exaltation
I’m a sailor on this ocean of grass
skimmed over its hills and never looked back