Writing from the Heart

So I'm a college freshman living in the freshman dorms with a couple papers to write, sunk deep in the momentary bliss of procrastination and not even feigning a fight with my bottomless craving for anything sweet and preferably chocolaty. Last night was no exception. I came home from work wanting ice cream when, whata ya know? my two good friends came down the hall with ice-cream from the vending machine. I had found my justification and no sooner found myself enjoying a small pint of cookies 'n cream while listening to music and talking about -- Can you guess? Boys.
I'd actually been waiting for another friend to come home so we could go running -- by now it is almost 10:00, the perfect time for a run -- so maybe I hadn't really thought through the ice-cream . . .
I was saved when she proposed a movie instead.
Have you ever watched "The Dead Poet's Society"? If you haven't, cancel your plans for the day and watch it. Maybe it's because I'm an English major, but I got chills and goosebumps and little warm fuzzies. Okay, so maybe some of the warm fuzzies came from the chocolate my friend brought over to share, but seriously, it's a great movie.
Afterwards, I wanted to try writing a poem like the one Todd creates in the movie - literally a spattering of the first thoughts that come to mind, continuing down the various paths of a frayed piece of yarn until they magically wind themselves up and come together. Often the poem knows where it wants to go before you can direct it there, so quit racking your brain for Shakespearean couplets. Quit studying a topic until your passion has burnt out beneath the heavy air of eloquence. Quit looking to reason and logic. Look in your heart, and write.
Well, here's my first attempt. Can't say it's flawless, but beauty never was.

I want to write something more beautiful

More beautiful than the way the praying mantis

Strokes a lotus flower

As he bequeaths his prayers to the wind

On which the birds fly forth like a hurricane

That whispers sweet destruction

As it turns the malting leaves

In slow and wistful swirls

Circling back again and again like time

In it’s perfect clockwork

Counting the moments that seconds can’t measure

That dreams can’t encompass

And hearts can hardly hold

That fingers cannot type

And lips cannot impart

Because they are so ordinary

That eloquence and ornaments are gods

That sit aloft and mean to my heart nothing

Candidly,

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