Free gift in every packet –
it might not be what you expect. Anticipate delight, or fear, or that bright tingle of desire that sets your fingers splaying –
in that anger you spilled
over the kitchen floor, there is
the seed of change –
rise up and use it. Breathe in deep and roar. Build roads and bridges, use your strength, haul on the rope, tighten your grip. Don’t let go –
and in that weight of fear there
is some love,
as if they’re sisters, love and fear, arms linked, flip sides of the same coin of passion, an old coin, warm in your hand, sticky from sitting in your pocket –
and in that great, grey,
overwhelming grief, you’ll find
somewhere in that cloud, that blocks your sight and leaves you groping, hands out, blinded by loss, reading the air with your fingertips –
a memory of joy.
Hold out your hand.
This is for Amaya at dVerse. She asks us to take something we previously posted on a past 11 September and play with it. My original poem was published last year Free gift in every packet – for dVerse – and it’s here in italics. It was interesting to review an old poem.
Sarah writes poems 
I love how you used the poem and adding layer, so clearly a merge into one line of thought… I might try that technique sometimes, it’s very interesting.
I think it’s almost like an inner voice, soothing explaining…
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There is so much hope in your voice, Sarah. To see fear as a gift takes a special soul. Thanks for linking up today.
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Incredible poem; read it thrice–strong wordsmithing and seamless blend with the older poem.
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This is brilliant! A poem within a poem, a pure nugget of a gem!
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Gifts aren’t always what we expect them to be. I like the hand held out at the end.
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This is absolutely beautiful! Thank you!
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My goodness Sarah this is simply amazing, so much to feel as this poem brings us into multiple simultaneous emotional dimensions. More later, STUnning!
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Ok here are the dimensions:
Love and fear – a two sided coin
Love and fear and grief – a triangulation
At this point of your poem I am thinking that the next participant is joy – and what do you do? You grasp blindly in the air (VERY vivid btw!)
“somewhere in that cloud, that blocks your sight and leaves you groping, hands out, blinded by loss, reading the air with your fingertips –
a memory of joy.”
So we have four corners of the square, love, fear, joy, grief – Fleshed out by the 5th hidden dimension of the time that has passed between the two poems building a literal perspective and living depth. It is like the the first italicized poem is a blueprint, if you will, that is made into tactile living messy breathing flesh by the second poem interspersed with the first, and it isn’t easy, it hurts, it bleeds. But still, who would trade away love or forget joy? Oh Sarah, this touches me deeply, the structure so clearly leads and sings the substance, you have truly shown us what it is to remember.
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Thank you for reading and commenting in so generously. It was great to revisit and develop a poem, and, of course, a year passing changes the world, and ourselves, a little.
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Holding out now both hands…
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You’ve captured anticipation and disappointment in this poem, Sarah, and turned them into strength, especially in the lines:
‘in that anger you spilled
over the kitchen floor, there is
the seed of change’.
You’ve also transformed an ordinary, everyday event into something momentous, a lesson and love.
I particularly love the glimpse of school playground sisterhood in the lines:
as if they’re sisters, love and fear, arms linked, flip sides of the same coin of passion, an old coin, warm in your hand, sticky from sitting in your pocke’
and the phrase ‘great, grey, overwhelming grief’ – so effective.
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