Spending a week with my brother - now a grateful cyborg - 2 days ago the neurologist at the University hospital turned up the DBS amperage 0.2 mA, substantially upgrading his Parkinson’s QoL with a God’s one finger Bluetooth button touch.
The resulting tiny increment in endogenous dopamine changed his lived experience from nauseous incapacity to joyful reconnection with life and love, a walk in the sun, laughter over cards, until next increment is necessary, until last mA of life is lived and spent.
I'm happy to hear your brother is experiencing some relief and reconnection with life! Illness isn't for the weak, is it? And you put this so beautiful - "an art to letting go, and an art to holding on." Yes! Thank you, Mark.
How did I not know you almost got murdered by a tree limb!!?? I feel so out of the loop. I love where you take this experience/story, though. The image of a brain "so branched and birdy" is delightful, and I love your ending - "Maybe I can be that kind of congregant. Maybe I can be alive."
This is splendid, Rebekah! One, I am glad you are okay. Two, we need to get you a walking helmet! I love ❤️ the way you embody the tree and limbs with such vivid imagery, and the lovely conclusion to which you arrive at the end. And the second stanza about the twice concussed painter. As someone who took 15 months a few years ago to almost fully recover from a conversation adding, her experience and seeing a positive to the altered brain 🧠 is really helpful to me. Thank you for being a walking explorer of a poet!
This is beautiful, Larry! I just loved "the debris of expectations" and then the seeming paradox of "in the traumatic act of letting go, my heart began to heal." It really is like that, isn't it? Letting go can feel so traumatic and painful and barely survivable . . . and then on the other side is this healing and peace and possibility.
Oooooh "daily pennies of order and frugality" got me, too! What a poem, Jim! I was so pulled in by the opening three lines, too, and the momentum never let up.
I loved your poem and love watching your evolution as a poet. I’m learning from you as you learn, though I’m not really a poet but someone whose mind just experiences solar flares of words.
There are many poets on Substack who talk about different poetic forms and styles and I haven’t a clue what they are talking about. That is OK with me but still enjoy following you and others as your poems often is the booster rocket into a philosophic thought atmosphere and often an examination of my mortal coil.
Solar flares of words! 🧡 Is there something better than that? Thank you for your kind words, Jim. To be honest, I don't know much about poetry or different poetic forms either. I'm still learning, and slowly. Mostly I'm having too much fun with my own solar flares of words to worry about squeezing them into different forms. But it's on my bucket list to work on that at some point. I appreciate your thoughts and words and perspective so much!
What a beautiful ode to letting go. You capture the wave and breadth of emotions so well, and make the personal universal in your framing and lyrical poem!
Beautiful - the daily pennies of order and frugality... I paused there in the best way possible. Thank you for showing us how letting go in poetic form is done.
This is really lovely Lisa. I love ❤️ the repeated ending: “your life depends/on the volume of/your letting go.” That is a whole poem all by itself! And that delicate balance of letting go and holding on, and when to do which. 😀
I really like this poem. This was the first time I have listened to one which I really enjoyed because I could hear the rhythm that you heard when you wrote it.
The sound quality is good. What did you record it on? Was it right in the app or did you record it separately and then add it
I think it’s some thing I wanna start doing as well because it really makes a difference
You read very well also. A long time ago I used to run a poetry open mic and a solid delivery in your own voice matters.
Thank you so much, Joe! I also really enjoy hearing poems read aloud. I just used the built-in recording app on my iPhone and then uploaded it to Substack - easy peasy.
Lisa, the form of this poem felt like a passing of a baton from one section to the next, kind of like a chain poem taking words from the previous stanza to start the next... Which felt metaphorically like what happens when our cells slough off and get picked up and recycled by the universe (as you say). I'd love to participate in the telephone poetry game. Thank you!
So!
Spending a week with my brother - now a grateful cyborg - 2 days ago the neurologist at the University hospital turned up the DBS amperage 0.2 mA, substantially upgrading his Parkinson’s QoL with a God’s one finger Bluetooth button touch.
The resulting tiny increment in endogenous dopamine changed his lived experience from nauseous incapacity to joyful reconnection with life and love, a walk in the sun, laughter over cards, until next increment is necessary, until last mA of life is lived and spent.
An art to letting go, and
an art to holding on.
Love what you do!
I'm happy to hear your brother is experiencing some relief and reconnection with life! Illness isn't for the weak, is it? And you put this so beautiful - "an art to letting go, and an art to holding on." Yes! Thank you, Mark.
Thank you Lisa!
Snap and rustle from above
did not make me look, thank god,
and a second later limb found
hull of head, thudding dully in my ears
before bouncing groundward to join
the crowd of tree leavings past,
indistinguishable and plausibly alibied
(“Who, me? I was just lying here!”).
.
I clutched my skull and wobbled
out of the fall zone, recalling
yesterday’s gallery exhibit
in which an artist twice concussed
displayed the contents of a brain
not only healed, but richly forested,
so branched and birdy it was as if
there had been no taming cuts—
never a desk job, never a rut—
all because she had taken up painting.
.
Though I sustained no lasting damage,
I vowed then to mix it up:
sample new routes, say yes,
wander after distant yellow.
Walking home, I paid my respects
to a scoliotic pine, its bole
nearly genuflecting, its arms up
in praise. Maybe I can be
that kind of congregant.
Maybe I can be alive.
How did I not know you almost got murdered by a tree limb!!?? I feel so out of the loop. I love where you take this experience/story, though. The image of a brain "so branched and birdy" is delightful, and I love your ending - "Maybe I can be that kind of congregant. Maybe I can be alive."
This is splendid, Rebekah! One, I am glad you are okay. Two, we need to get you a walking helmet! I love ❤️ the way you embody the tree and limbs with such vivid imagery, and the lovely conclusion to which you arrive at the end. And the second stanza about the twice concussed painter. As someone who took 15 months a few years ago to almost fully recover from a conversation adding, her experience and seeing a positive to the altered brain 🧠 is really helpful to me. Thank you for being a walking explorer of a poet!
In a brief moment of quiet, this one appeared...
^
It was that moment,
an inescapable vision of a dream
weaving into a nightmare,
that my grip began to loosen,
the debris of expectations and desires,
the soft edges turned hard and cold,
sifting away like ashes in the wind.
It was that moment,
In the traumatic act of letting go,
My heart began to heal.
My life able to be lived once more,
My song finally able to be sung.
This is beautiful, Larry! I just loved "the debris of expectations" and then the seeming paradox of "in the traumatic act of letting go, my heart began to heal." It really is like that, isn't it? Letting go can feel so traumatic and painful and barely survivable . . . and then on the other side is this healing and peace and possibility.
This one really knocked my inner psychopomp's socks off. Really beautiful, friend. And I'd love to play telephone tag poets again. 😃
Thank you, and I'm so glad you're in on the telephone game! Also, I had to look up the word "psychopomp" and am so glad I did.
Letting Go of the Past
I gladly held your hand
As you grew more sensitive
To your own interior
And slowly healed
From the undulating waves and eddies
With cross currents of red, blue, and green
Of thoughts, feeling and emotions
Creating such turmoil and chaos
That you had no space for me
And a single tear
Could not relieve the bleaching
Of my spirit
To find peace and serenity in the moment
I no longer forsake the peace
Arising from natural beauty and calm
That stills my heart and cleanses my soul
I am no longer succumbing
To the daily pennies of order and frugality
No longer swimming in the turmoil of past memories
As I travel to local and distant landscapes
Of nature, knowledge and the knowing spirit
I have let you go
Oooooh "daily pennies of order and frugality" got me, too! What a poem, Jim! I was so pulled in by the opening three lines, too, and the momentum never let up.
Lisa,
I loved your poem and love watching your evolution as a poet. I’m learning from you as you learn, though I’m not really a poet but someone whose mind just experiences solar flares of words.
There are many poets on Substack who talk about different poetic forms and styles and I haven’t a clue what they are talking about. That is OK with me but still enjoy following you and others as your poems often is the booster rocket into a philosophic thought atmosphere and often an examination of my mortal coil.
So thank you.
Solar flares of words! 🧡 Is there something better than that? Thank you for your kind words, Jim. To be honest, I don't know much about poetry or different poetic forms either. I'm still learning, and slowly. Mostly I'm having too much fun with my own solar flares of words to worry about squeezing them into different forms. But it's on my bucket list to work on that at some point. I appreciate your thoughts and words and perspective so much!
Lisa,
Congratulations. I see one of your poems was selected by Maya Popa.
Thanks, Jim! Definitely feels like an honor.
It is an honor.
It feels like an honor because IT IS AN HONOR.
🙏🏻😍☺️🥰😎👍
What a beautiful ode to letting go. You capture the wave and breadth of emotions so well, and make the personal universal in your framing and lyrical poem!
Beautiful - the daily pennies of order and frugality... I paused there in the best way possible. Thank you for showing us how letting go in poetic form is done.
Thank you. I’m humbled that you like it.
This is really lovely Lisa. I love ❤️ the repeated ending: “your life depends/on the volume of/your letting go.” That is a whole poem all by itself! And that delicate balance of letting go and holding on, and when to do which. 😀
Thank you so much, friend!
I really like this poem. This was the first time I have listened to one which I really enjoyed because I could hear the rhythm that you heard when you wrote it.
The sound quality is good. What did you record it on? Was it right in the app or did you record it separately and then add it
I think it’s some thing I wanna start doing as well because it really makes a difference
You read very well also. A long time ago I used to run a poetry open mic and a solid delivery in your own voice matters.
Really great
Thank you so much, Joe! I also really enjoy hearing poems read aloud. I just used the built-in recording app on my iPhone and then uploaded it to Substack - easy peasy.
Awesome. Thank you.
I'll be waiting by the telephone :)
And by the way, I loved your poem!
Oh yay! I’ll add you to the list. And thank you, dear.❤️
Hello, I would like to play the poem telephone game!
Wonderful! I've got you on the list!
Lisa, the form of this poem felt like a passing of a baton from one section to the next, kind of like a chain poem taking words from the previous stanza to start the next... Which felt metaphorically like what happens when our cells slough off and get picked up and recycled by the universe (as you say). I'd love to participate in the telephone poetry game. Thank you!
Thank you so much for your thoughtful reflection on the poem, Emily! And I'm so glad you're in on the telephone game - I've added you to the list!
Oh, Lisa.... wait 'til we talk on Monday....
❤️💔❤️
Count me in for the telephone game. How neat! Thank you!
Yippee! You're on the list!
❤️🩷
Oooh! The telephone game sounds like fun! Count me in, please.
Yay! I've got you on the list!
I would love to play this if I’m not too late! Love the prompt as well.
Not too late! I’ll add you to the list.
Count me in for telephone poetry, Lisa!
Yippeeee!!! On the list.