To Everything There is a Season

This semester I'm taking a poetry class with Nikki Giovanni, who likes to assign extraordinarily vague assignments... This one was assigned as followed: "Autumn... 1500 words. Any questions?" So here is my abstract take on making that happen.

To Everything There is a Season

and a time for every purpose under heaven.

A time to be born and a time to die.

A time to plant and a time to harvest.

A time to kill and a time to heal.

A time to tear down and a time to build up.

A time to cry and a time to laugh.

A time to grieve and a time to dance.

A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.

A time to embrace and a time to turn away.

A time to search and a time to quit searching.

A time to keep and a time to throw away.

A time to tear and a time to mend.

A time to be quiet and a time to speak.

A time to love and a time to hate.

A time for war and a time for peace.

Winter

I always said it would be a cold day in hell,

And it is…

The moment I step through the threshold where daydreams meet reality

I’m accosted by a frigid wind, instantly evicting all breath from my body.

I balance, terrified, on the plateau of hell frozen over,

gazing into the abyss of what once composed my soul.

Fragments of my former existence lie all blurred together,

no longer defined by anything other than the blanket of white that covers them.

There is nothing left for me here, I have nothing left to give.

I have fought with myself… with you… with everyone.

I fought with more fight than I ever knew I had inside me,

and it still wasn’t enough.

Not for you.

My tears freeze the instant they fall,

shattering like the rest of the broken glass;

the glass that once protected our family,

in a frame encapsulating what we used to be.

Those days are long gone, dead and buried like those in the graveyard I’m passing by.

Everything is covered in ice…

So many layers that I’ve lost sight of what was inside to begin with.

The winter months are long, dark, and lonely stuffed in a room full of people,

all the while being alone… I resented that time.

The time you stole from me, the time you froze me in,

stuck in an ice age of empty promises, deceit and lies.

If only I had known that was merely the tip of the iceberg.

I think I would have rather walked through a tornado of broken glass…

I would have come out less wounded.

You’re going to catch a cold, from the ice inside your soul…

So don’t come back for me,

Don’t come back at all.

Spring

So melted the ice,

with it releasing the wrath-ridden choke-hold of winter,

breathing life into the sharp daggers of truth

rising from the ground that once housed

the walls of ice I intricately and deliberately surrounded myself with.

I had been safe there…

Up came everything that I had purposely kept

tucked neatly inside my core…

slowly defiling me from the inside out.

I find myself suffocating in the lull of a room
filled with plants that bloom

no matter what the season.

Re-telling the same stories,
as if reliving them would give me a chance to change the ending.

I began again just for the sake of starting over

with the rest of the universe.

And so I started over, chained to the burdens of seasons past

moving forward, yet going nowhere.

The April showers mirror the cascade of tears falling down my face

after been held back for far too long.

Eventually they bring May flowers to remind me that

everything worth having is worth fighting for…

Even in the dead of winter

something lives.

I can feel it.

I am angry still.

I have such a furious fire burning in my soul…

I should be ashes by now,

but I am letting go.

So melts the ice…

out with the old, in with the new.

Summer

Paradise.

Sunrise, sunrise,

you couldn’t stop me if you tried.

Free at last.

I am as free as the wind blows,

free as the sun to rise and set as it pleases,

finding the joy in elongating the light of each new day.

Free like the honeysuckle vine

wrapping desperately around everything it touches

begging to expand its ability

to make something crippling, beautiful.

Free like the dandelion seeds floating through the air,

finding ‘home’ wherever the winds of life take them,

expanding their ‘family’ to those encountered along the way.

The world around me is bursting with life,

and for the first time in years,

I see it for what it is,

instead of what it is not.

I counted the stars on the fourth of July

knowing that this independence day meant much, much more

than rockets bursting in the sky.

Talking about redemption and leaving things behind…

At peace with how I played the hand I was dealt,

at peace with the beauty in the breakdown.

Encompassed by the eternal serenity bestowed upon me

by the angels I spent time with,

just passing through the crossroads.

The warmth of the air is comparable

to the heart I finally allowed the chance to thaw.

Through the changing tides of time

I’ve come to understand,

I must write the good in stone,

and lie the bad down on the sand.

Autumn

It is true what they say;

a journey of a thousand miles

does indeed begin with the first step.

I took that step, and many, many thousands beyond it.

Though my feet may hurt, I’ll never stop walking.

I’m starting over,

for the sake of starting over

without the rest of the universe.

Once upon a time,

I wanted everything to stay the same.

Once upon a time,

it was better that it changed.

I changed.

What if trials of this life,

the rain, the storms, the darkest nights,

are really mercies in disguise?

What doesn’t kill you builds character.

The winds of grace are always blowing

but you must raise the sail…

The combination of the sunshine on my face,

the chill in the air, and the hues of every season

joining together in a grand finale

reminds me of the journey…

and that it is far from over.

I walk down the paths I’ve walked before,

past the graveyard I used to call home,

and in the absence of disdain, I'm planting seeds…

Seeds of the memories that now compose my soul

coupled with the desire to cultivate new ones.

You reap what you sow.

I’m reminded by the leaves,

as they fall from the trees,

that there IS beauty in the breakdown.

It is true that in order to gain something worth having,

it may be necessary to lose everything else.

Like the flowers shriveling up

into nothing but the seedpod fruits of their labor,

I will find something worth leaving behind.

I will go into winter knowing

that I used everything I was given

to cultivate for myself a new existence,

a new and deeply impassioned ambition;

a new and selflessly loving family;

a new and eternal inspiration to be the change;

a new and unparalleled happiness.

I will go into winter

knowing there is no need to shelter my heart with walls of ice;

knowing that it is better to love and lose;

knowing that even in death there opens doors for life to enter;

knowing that it is not always about what is ending, but what’s beginning.

So starts the beginning to my new ending:

May God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference,

and the strength to do all the good I can,

in all the ways I can,

for all the people I can,

for as long as I can.

forever and always,

always and forever,

till death do I part from this earth.