So Emotional

I still can't wrap my head around the fact that Whitney Houston is gone. Every time I turn on the television and see the news, I can't help but think it isn't real. I'm stunned.

One of the first songs I remember falling in love with is "So Emotional." Whenever one of my good friends and I heard this song come on the radio while hanging out at her grandmother's pool on a hot afternoon, we immediately began screaming out the song with our squeaky little voices trying to compete with Whitney's. No one can compete with her. Music won't be the same without her.

The poem I've selected for this week is in tribute to Whitney: "The Role of Elegy" by Mary Jo Bang.

May her soul rest in peace and her family and loved ones find healing and peace in their hearts after their tragic loss.

What memories does Whitney Houston evoke for you? What was your favorite song of hers?

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Some other links I thought I'd share:

An inspiring article on working toward success by Dan Blank: "Being a Success, Without Being a Bestseller"

Many of us can relate with this question: "Can there be a day to celebrate failure?"Read an excerpt from Paige Taggart's poem "Get Your Slip On" via The The Poetry

Are you as crazy about Pinterest? (It has become a bad, bad habit for me!) Check out these boards for book-lovers! And if you have any others you follow and would like to share, please let me know!

Mayfly (Gone Too Soon)

Cancer.  That ugly thing rears its head again this month and consumes yet another life, a sweet young woman not even 21 years old.  She leaves behind a son who turns 5 this Saturday.  She became engaged the week before hospice came in.  She was a mayfly, created and given to this earth for a short while.  Time never seems to be on anyone's side... 

Who knows how long a life is?  Do we want to know if we are born a mayfly?  If the ones we love are?

"Mayfly" by Douglas Florian is my poem for Viviana today.  "Its life is over/Far too soon."  May she rest in peace now.

View from Her Deathbed

My poem for One Stop Poetry's One-Shot-Wednesday:

View from Her Deathbed

She didn't want to see
the buildings in the skyline.  She wanted
the trees, their sap misting upon her
face, her hands.  Not the view
from the rooftop patio outside
the penthouse, the one
from the porch where the ferns nest
and the fat cat naps.

She said buildings were machines
built to support illusions of progress where prayer
was banned.  Windows so high
people looked like frantic ants below
marching along to market, to cell phone
stores, to car dealerships, without paying
attention to the trees. Their branches growing
upward, reaching toward an unpromised
haven, hope directing
each trusting branch's extension.

She wanted to feel their breeze.



Feedback and suggestions always welcome.  Thanks for stopping by.

Smile, Andrea

May You Now Rest Peacefully

A little over a week ago, I wrote a poem entitled "Stage 4" and dedicated it to my best friend's grandmother who had just been diagnosed with Stage Four cancer in her throat, lungs, and stomach. I've known Gram since I was 11 years old and she has been like a grandmother to me. Today, Barbara Wasiewski's soul has moved into Heaven, and she can now rest without pain, without sadness, and in the peace she deserves. I have been blessed to have known such a beautiful soul in my life. She will live on in our hearts. I can see her sweet smile now.

Because poetry always helps me get through trying times, I began browsing The Poetry Foundation's website and found a beautiful poem by Bryan D. Dietrich I thought I would share: "I Imagine My Father's Death." The last three lines of this touching poem:

He looks around marveling at this thing
his death has made, then sets out to find
someone, anyone with whom to share it."

I love you, Gram. I'm playing "Barbara Ann" by The Beach Boys and toasting to you with a glass of red wine tonight.

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

 Even Papo (My Grandpa) is here!

 Dad, Myself, and Mom  - What a view she has!

 The Family with Mom (others were there in spirit)

 Dad and Auntie Linda with Mom

Mom getting ready to blow out her candles

And Death Shall Have No Dominion by Dylan Thomas : The Poetry Foundation [poem] : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry.  Click on the link to read the poem...

My family and I went the day after Thanksgiving to visit my Grandmother at the cemetery on her birthday. What a bittersweet moment in life. It strikes you the way a cold gush of wind can take the breath from your chest. The only thing missing was Elvis' "One Night With You" playing in the background, but we were all singing it to ourselves in our heads. At least, I was. This memory is so vivid, and it unfolded itself just like a poem.

My aunt placed yellow roses by the headstone and secured them with a rubber-band, half standing on Mom's (my Grandma's nickname) side and the other half on Papo's (my Grandpa's nickname). I don't think we looked at each other for fear of the tears starting and never stopping. My dad opened up the champagne, laughed at seeing how far the cork flew, and as I was walking back from retrieving it, he poured a little of the champagne out for each of them. Other family members showed up, we made mimosas, toasted to Mom and wished her a happy birthday. We stood around and talked and laughed, all of this feeling so normal, just like we were sitting in Mom's living room. We lit the candles on the carrot cake, sang "Happy Birthday", and I cannot even remember who blew the candles out - maybe we just let them burn. Opened up another bottle of champagne, my cousin had a contest with my dad to see whose cork went the longer distance, and that was the way the day played out. We all went out for a late lunch and spent more family time together over fried ice cream. I feel as if I had two Thanksgivings this year.

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die, " said Thomas Campbell. Mom will never die, she just gets better with age, something I know she is smiling at as I write it.

It's Never Too Late to Become a Gardener

One of my favorite passages from Ray Bradury's Fahrenheit 451:

"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime."

Burying the Name

Burying the Name

My name is somewhere

between my hand and my heart.

My name means nothing 

because of where

it comes from,  no familiar

place to find comfort in.

The world echoes 

into nothing but is something.

A world with no recognition

of color, no classification

of death, and streets filled

with people I have forgotten.

I dream up poems thick

as mayonnaise.  Cross my 

heart and hope no one dies 

before they hear the words

I meant to say.

Talking out loud to no one

does not constitute a cleansing

of one's conscience.  I have

relegated the dead into particles

of matter because the dead

were the ones who mattered most.

All these things left 

undone, with no place

to grieve.  Burying

my name was the easiest part.

- Andrea Beltran