So many wonderful things, so much hope (and a poem)

Posted on March 19, 2020 by Michelle Garren-Flye

Nature has faith in spring. Photo by Michelle Garren Flye

I’m seeing so many wonderful things happening in my little town during this COVID-19 outbreak, I can’t help but be hopeful. Yes, the downtown is a bit of a ghost town (as it should be), but friends and strangers are reaching out in whatever ways they can to help support the businesses that are suffering, including my little bookstore.

I’m seeing teachers reaching out to students, helping them adjust to distance learning and trying to reassure them. Schools are sending lunches out to children in the community. Everyone in the education community is doing their best to help kids accept the “new normal” that might be with us for quite a while.

No, none of this is okay. But with a little faith, it will be, and you can find faith in unexpected places.

Finding Faith

By Michelle Garren Flye

Faith grows in unexpected places

You find it in the darkest spaces

And on the homeliest faces

And sometimes in bright daylight

Even out in plain sight

Or in the laughter of pure delight

It can be found in the smile of a child

Or growing free in the wild

Or possibly among the papers you filed

Just watch and you’ll see

How easy it can be

You’ll find your faith eventually.

Poem: All Right Again

Posted on March 18, 2020 by Michelle Garren-Flye

Like a promise that we will truly be all right again, I found the first violet of spring today. Photo by Michelle Garren Flye

It’s so tempting to think everything’s fine. The kids are home from school, sure, but that’s happened before. They always go back. Downtown is mostly empty and the restaurants are all closed but hey, that happens whenever we get half an inch of snow or ice. And yeah, people are having to cancel dream vacations and the stock market is tanking, and nobody is going to parties or play dates or visiting grandparents…no, everything’s not fine.

Eventually it will be, though. We’ll pick up the pieces, but I think we’ll pick up a few other things at the same time. A new appreciation for a hug from a friend, for instance. Less reluctance to get up and take the kids to school in the morning. A newfound faith in life and whatever power has helped us get through it all.

Yes, eventually it will be all right again.

All Right Again

By Michelle Garren Flye

When we pick up the pieces again, what will find there?

Can we put them together the way they were,

Or will it become something wholly new?

For some will be missing, little pieces torn away.

Lost in the big picture of our new normalcy.

What will it be like, this mishmash of bits?

When we turn it shiny side up, will enough be left?

Or will the picture be distorted by what we lost?

Or maybe by what we added along the way.

Poem: What’s Fifty? (Happy birthday to me)

Posted on March 15, 2020 by Michelle Garren-Flye

I won’t lie, it’s difficult celebrating today. But it’s also sort of necessary, isn’t it? I mean, every year on this day, I look at the flowers blooming and think, I hope I’m here one more year to see this. So, no matter what the next year brings, I celebrate last year and say goodbye to it. It’s time to turn to what’s coming with gratitude for what came before.

What’s Fifty?

By Michelle Garren Flye

It’s not so important, this birthday of mine.

I’ll toast and forget it with a little red wine.

What’s fifty, after all, but a number of sorts?

It’s not like it comes with big lumpy warts.

I’m not really any older than I was yesterday—

I’ll still skip and holler in the midst of the fray.

If you think about it, each day leaves us a bit worn,

And it starts from the very hour we are born.

What’s fifty after all, but the next logical step?

Each year, just a memory, so carefully kept.

We build our remembrances up until the end,

And hope time’s passage brings us another friend.

What’s fifty? I yell to the rest of the world.

I’m nothing without age…let the years unfurl!

It’s not like it’s something we’d want to avoid.

If we try to, our hopes will just be destroyed.

What’s fifty? A point on a timeline, if you would.

Just you wait, this year I’ll make fifty look good.

Going for it: Heart of the Pamlico Poet Laureate finalist

Posted on March 10, 2020 by Michelle Garren-Flye

In April 2017, I began writing poetry. As in writing a poem a day for all thirty days of National Poetry Month. I don’t even know why. I had never thought of myself as a poet. I’m not a classically trained one, anyway. My degrees are in journalism and library science. The only things I know about rhyme and rhythm and meter are the little bit I remember from high school—and what I feel in my heart.

Since April 2017, which I now realize was almost three years ago, I have written poetry often, usually to vent something, political or personal. I’ve taught a few elementary poetry classes to kids because I still remember the first time I read e.e. cummings’s “in just—” and I wanted to share that with them. I’ve read and written poetry for more than one voice, which is not something I learned in school. I’ve played with rhyming and not rhyming, sometimes in the same poem. I’ve written prose poetry and limericks and haiku. (Haiku, done properly, is much harder than you might think.)

Last year, I published a little booklet of my poetry because a friend had passed away and I wanted to dedicate something beautiful to her memory. I chose fourteen of my favorite poems, formatted them with some of my photography and sent them off to a printer. I have given away more of those booklets than I’ve sold (it’s only available at my bookstore).

And that’s what poetry is to me, really. It’s meant to share. I’m more than happy to charge you $9 for one of my romances, but poetry, to me, is something different. Most of what I write goes on my blog, if I think it’s any good. I’ve only ever tried to submit it to poetry magazines or contests once or twice, more because I wanted to share with a wider audience than anything.

So, you might imagine my surprised delight when I was notified yesterday that I am a finalist for the title of 2020 Heart of the Pamlico Poet Laureate. This means I have the opportunity to present my poetry and my view of poetry to an audience at the historic Turnage Theatre in less than a month. I’m thrilled, rattled, uncertain, ecstatic and pretty sure the selection committee sent the email to the wrong person, but at the same time, I’m gonna go for it. This is a huge honor for me, as well as the opportunity to express my love for this art form.

Wish me luck.

Poem: Jack Frost’s Gift

Posted on December 20, 2019 by Michelle Garren-Flye

Photo by Michelle Garren Flye

Jack Frost’s Gift
By Michelle Garren Flye

Jack Frost made me a gift today—
Turned a rose to silver filigree
And left it by my way
So I would be sure to see.
Twas a grand thing to bear witness
To such a work of care and art!
I couldn’t bear to make a guess
How much he left of his heart.
Oh, such a fine gesture to send
Such a worthless being as me!
I didn’t take it with me in the end.
I suppose I didn’t feel worthy.

Poem: When Justice Falls

Posted on December 19, 2019 by Michelle Garren-Flye

Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán on Pexels.com

I’ve been struggling with my feelings about the impeachment of Donald Trump. Last night, watching the votes rack up and the opposing sides face off, I felt as if I were torn in half. I never wanted this. But since the day I realized Donald Trump would be our president, I knew it was coming. It was a matter of when. With each of his horrific policies and statements, I wished it would come already. When immigrant children were separated from their families at the border to be placed in group “homes” and “facilities” without protection from God only knows what (death and abuse), I prayed for Donald Trump to be impeached. When he pulled our military out and left our Kurdish allies to bleed and die, I prayed for Donald Trump to be impeached. When Donald Trump overturned the military courts and allowed war crimes to go unpunished, I cursed God for not listening.

And now I am confronted by the reality. Donald Trump is impeached. And every Republican stood behind him, defending the indefensible, turning the truth to fit their own version of reality, spitting in the face of what is right. And I know that when he is acquitted in the Senate by his majority, something precious will die. And all I feel is sad.

When Justice Falls

By Michelle Garren Flye

You’d think I’d be happier, right?

Justice is blind, but Truth lies at her feet.

How can she not see what lies before her?

Come, Justice, set us free from tyranny!

But she can’t hear me above the multitude of lies.

Blind and deafened, she doesn’t see Truth…and stumbles.

You’d think I’d be happy, dancing…

But instead I just want to cry blood and rain.

I want to scream, wake up, stop this!

Please, please…open your eyes.

It’s not a dream, not an illusion—it’s real.

What you grind under your feet doesn’t grow back.

You’d think I’d be happy to tell you I told you so.

I’m not—in truth I never wanted to be right.

I just knew, inescapably and undeniably, that I was.

Now I sit, bowed and broken and old and tired,

At the graveside of ideals with Truth for company.

We wait together—eventually, Justice will fall beside us.

Poem: Being Monkeys

Posted on December 13, 2019 by Michelle Garren-Flye

In this Christmas season, a lot of people are seeing no evil, hearing no evil and definitely speaking no evil. Congrats.

Being Monkeys

By Michelle Garren Flye

Turn your back—you didn’t see it.

Close your ears—you didn’t hear.

Cover your mouth—don’t speak out!

It’s no business of yours if we fall.

In one thing only we are united today.

Denial of the truth binds us all together.

If we don’t admit our wrongs, our mistakes,

How can they be marks against our history?

It’s a dangerous pass we’ve chosen to tread,

A treacherous and awful way to proceed.

Ignoring one story to side with another,

Passing up wisdom in favor of greed.

What do we do now, how to fix what’s broken?

In a world with no laws, how can we be safe?

Stay by the fire, ignore the cries of others—

After all, you are blind and deaf…mute, too.

Aren’t you lucky? No one expects you to speak.

Stay by your fire.

Poem: Now That I Am In Mid-Fall

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Michelle Garren-Flye

Photo by Michelle Garren Flye

Now That I Am In Mid-Fall

By Michelle Garren Flye

Fall has been glorious to date.

Full of lovely color and warm days.

Breezy enough to invigorate,

With sun highlighting forest byways.

Now that I am in mid-Fall—it seems corny—

But I might like it better than Summer.

Summer was too hot, too bright, too stormy.

Full of buggy, muggy days without number.

But oh, yes, there were good times, too.

Days by the pool, lazing out in the heat,

Then slipping into the water just to cool.

Laughter, picnics, and flowers by my feet.

Yes, Summer could make you a believer,

But now that I am in mid-Fall, I think

I enjoy the mellow more than the fever—

And on the vine, I still see roses growing.

Some say Spring is best with days warming—

Greening, blooming bursts in urban sprawl.

But Spring is needy, showy, always wanting.

I see that clearly now that I am in mid-Fall.

Now that I am in mid-Fall with dry, brown leaves

Crunch, crunch, crunching beneath my feet,

Like worn out, torn up, decaying past years,

And I laugh at the roses blooming as a treat.

I wonder if I might not like Winter even better?

When I’ve swept the leaves away and all is clear,

Fire at the hearth, chores done, no longer a quester—

Now that I am in mid-Fall, and Winter draws near.

It might not be too bad, I think, sipping cocoa,

Blanketed in Love, settled in a rocking chair.

Maybe roses bloom in Winter sometimes, too?

Now that I am in mid-Fall—falling toward Winter.

Photo by Michelle Garren Flye

A Poem Thing: Four Columns

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Michelle Garren-Flye

Our columns are crumbling and we will all perish. Our nation implodes around us, but no one seems willing to stop it. And so the great Democracy experiment ends at last.

Four Columns

By Michelle Garren Flye

We stand in a great hall supported by four huge columns.

Truth

Justice

Equality

Honor

Colossal in height, enormous in strength, radiant in beauty.

Columns meant to support our roof for eternity.

But those columns have not been cared for.

Paint peels with each passing year.

We ding them and pepper them with bullet holes.

Long cracks run from ceiling to floor.

I wish I could put my arms around them.

Hold them together by sheer force of will.

Someone ties a flag around one, but it’s a poor bandage.

And then there is him. He’s bigger than us. He grasps a hammer in one hand.

He takes aim at Justice, strikes a heavy blow.

Yellow-white hair flies back as he howls.

What has Justice done to you, I cry, but my voice is lost.

He turns to Truth and strikes again and again.

One blow can’t bring down the mighty column—but he doesn’t strike just once.

Stop, I cry, rushing forward, but held back by the heavy mass of others between us.

I scream at them, pummel them with my tiny fists, spit arrows at them…

No one cares. No one listens, and he turns the hammer on Equality.

WE WILL ALL PERISH IF YOU LET HIM CONTINUE!

But they don’t stop him, and I wait for the damage to climax, the roof to collapse.

And when it comes, it is Honor that falls first.

It makes sense. Truth, Justice, Equality—all can take a beating from him.

But each blow on one of them also damaged Honor, and it crumbles at last.

It topples the others, too.

Poems: Push Back, Speak Up (Warnings)

Posted on October 17, 2019 by Michelle Garren-Flye

Silence is not an option. It’s not golden. Find your voice before it’s lost.

Once again, I take my inspiration from a strong woman. Nancy Pelosi may not be the first person you’d think would inspire poetry, but that picture of her pointing a stern finger at a spoiled man while he recoils in stunned anger should inspire every woman who’s ever felt smothered by men.

I know how that happens. Every woman knows. We’re conditioned to get married and have children and if we don’t then there’s something wrong with us. I got married and had children. For a time I did lose my voice, but then I found it again in my writing. I’m fortunate to be married to a man who is confident enough in his own skin to allow me to speak out from mine.

Me too, nasty women, hear me roar, fight like a girl, my body my choice, the future is female, and my personal favorite: silence is not an option. These are just a few of the things women have found the voice to say. But what they all add up to is this: Every. Single. Woman. Has. A. Voice. And that voice is not meant to echo, it’s not meant to be bitten back or smothered behind a man’s hand. Speaking up doesn’t make you less of a woman. It makes you more of a human.

Speaker Pelosi is speaking up in that picture, and that’s why Donald Trump thinks it depicts her as having a “meltdown”. That’s why some men will agree with him. And that’s why we owe it to all women everywhere to speak up. We have voices. Let’s use them.

Silence is not an option. At least, it’s not a good one.

Push Back (A Warning)

By Michelle Garren Flye

He wraps you up.

Warmth envelops you.

It’s nice, safe, there in him.

You might never want to leave.

He wraps you in.

Safety can suffocate.

You choke, feel lost and alone.

You can’t be free now, can’t speak out.

He wraps you down.