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Tuesday, April 14, 2015

PO-EMotion #14- Desire



April is National Poetry Month. Every year, my dear friend (and poet Extraordinaire), Mary Lee Hahn chooses a theme, and writes a poem each day. Mary Lee blogs and posts her poems at two different places- YEAR OF READING and a fabulous new poetry blog POETREPOSITORY.

This year, Mary Lee has chosen the theme, "PO-EMotions." She promises, "This year, I will write a poem a day that either evokes an emotion, or uses an emotion word in the title or body of the poem." Her list of emotions is here. I'm joining her, at least some days.

Today's emotion is  desire.


"Longing"

Living with
unfulfilled desire
is like stepping on 
a shard of glass
at first it protrudes 
and pains regularly
if you pick at it
try to remove it
with fingernails or tweezers 
it hurts worse

soon you learn 
you can avoid the pain
if you do not step 
in certain ways
eventually
a callous grows
and you become accustomed
to the hard bump
on the bottom of your foot

every once in a while
you step wrong
and a stab of pain
shoots heart ward
but most of the time
the desire is just there
causing that constant throb
of endurable
discomfort

(c) Carol Wilcox, 2015



6 comments:

Kay said...

Yes, yes, yes. That is what it feels like to have an unfulfilled desire. I hope you find your desires filled.

Stacey Shubitz said...

How perfectly you described longing, Carol. I'm going through a little of that myself today and it feels like if I step around the issue, it won't hurt so much. But, inevitably, you can only be so careful for so long because the pain is still there. Right?

Tara said...

So true...but stepping wrong is yet a reminder of our human condition, isn't it, of longing for and believing in desires.

Mary Lee said...

"endurable/discomfort"

Great word choice. So often we have to hide what matters most and get on with the rest of it.

Linda B said...

"shoots heart ward", always. Beautiful, Carol. That bump stays, & eventually to me it seems that one must not avoid anymore. I just don't know when. Guess it's different for everyone.

Kimberley Moran said...

What Tara said. We need to consider our desires because they are a part of us. This is great.