"When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am…" –Maya Angelou
The years I’ve spent all looking inward
The answers never found
The hours, dreading, looking outward
At the wild world unbound
The scenes are set, the curtains rising
The actors all arranged
But will we pass with colors flying
Or flee an empty stage?
The rain comes at last
Painter of a deeper green
Brings living to life
Words used to flow as rivers,
Fed by a fountain of youth.
Now the luster of waters grow dimmer;
Now the head is polluted by truth.
Streams only seem to flow downward;
Life seems to trickle away.
But the ocean remains, whatever there foundered,
And there, there be dragons to stay.
My world’s too small for wonder;
My heart used too little to be fond.
My competence too acquainted with every blunder
To believe “it’s not me — I’ve been wronged!”
My brain’s too caught up in matters gray
To make up its mind what’s right and wrong;
But still my despair won’t get its way
Be it because I’m weak, or strong.
Once, the world fell into place
Held up by equilibrium
But all of us will stumble
No exemption for the least
And the depths will prove as cold as space
When the glow of stars has ceased
The quiet doesn’t tell me the answers
It only tells me to find them myself
No lightning from the sky for inspiration
No magical guide to give me some help
I’m lost in a nightmare that’s supposed to be mine
I have this dream I’ll find my way out
But until then I’m supposed to know what I’m doing
I guess I should probably figure it out.
Hidden by four walls
The world passes by unseen
But somewhere past the curtains
A world is turning green
I want to be elsewhere
I want to see the rising sun
And feel that it is worth it
To dare to rise along
With the sounds of engines starting
With the dew still on the lawn
With the burdened still unbowing
With the birds and all their song.
A bad life never changes;
But it never will get worse.
Or so I always thought;
But life won’t accept blank pages,
And it will write its own verse.
I am sick with every moment,
Every step I have to take.
I should be stronger and I know it,
But I’m caught and can’t escape
From the fires I see everywhere,
Including those yet to exist;
These sparks should be the end of me,
Yet still my own persists.
Writer In Retrospect 