One Might Ask: What Purpose This?

Just take the next uncharted step, and keep it uncharted!

Next week I’m fulfilling a promise I made in this space, on Jan. 1, at this, the six-month mark into the 2024 calendar year. That’s what the end of June is, the sixth month mark (join me all at once now… “When did THAT happen?”) Next week has to do with Resolutions and the promises we make (made) with ourselves to live better lives than what was lived the year or years previous.

Did you make New Year’s resolutions for this year? Okay, you may have made them but do you remember them? Were you successful? What does successful even mean in this context?

Have you been changed?

But again, that’s next week. This is this week. So I’m not going there yet. But with that in mind, I felt compelled, from some place unknowable, to “go poetry” on y’all again.

For me, I feel most naked and exposed, aka vulnerable, when I dare to share any of my poetry. For 56 years of my life, I carefully crafted a persona I felt most true to my own true nature. I think I did well in that endeavor as I have no regrets and have nothing for which I feel I need to apologize (unless I follow George Saunders’ example to say if I do need to apologize for anything, it would be for “failures of kindness:” e.g. for failing to extend even a simple, common kindness to a fellow being, human or more than human, when the opportunity was there to be shared. There are ALWAYS ways for me to be more kind, so I try at every opportunity, imperfectly.)

I have way too many poets I admire to list them all. Well, truth be told, I probably admire all poets, whether those well-known with fame or celebrity, or those known only to themselves as their own sole audience member. Anyone who dares expose the very depths of their hearts, through writing, which is what good poetry is, gets my admiration without question.

Being a part of the Substack community has opened me up to more writers, for sure. That’s the intended community that Substack was made for. And within the ecosystem of Substack itself, there exists a growing number of smaller communities that strongly resonate with the life I’m currently living. There be great writers here—writers no one has ever heard about because they’ve not struck “main-stream publishing gold.” The great thing is that most of these writers don’t care too much about all that (although many still fret about their subscription numbers). These writers are simply sharing the “extraordinarily ordinary” experiences of the lives they’re living—and they are doing so in sometimes quite inspirational ways. And there be friends here too—even though the digital divide keeps me from actually meeting these new friends in person, the way people write, here, illuminates their authenticity. Nowadays, I try not to spend any time or energy on anything or anyone that cannot be, or refuses to be, authentic. There are a growing number of people in the Substack communities I’m lucky to be a part of with whom I’d love to spend an afternoon at a local coffee cafe to talk about writing, language, books, and poetry. Oh yeah, poetry…. Back to that.

And there be poets here among us too. The thing I appreciate the most, and am awed by with every poetry post I open or ‘Stack I subscribe to, is the incredible capacity for wisdom, compassion, and love that “everyday, ordinary humans who have not gained wide aclaim or fame” have within themselves, and the courage they show by posting their works here for public exposure and consumption. There are a growing number of well-known writers, thinkers, and celebrities, (ironically, most of them hide the bulk of their work behind paywalls) who are finding their way to Substack, too. I’m finding a lack of interest in those people in favor of the vast number of not-well-known writers who simply want to express themselves because they have a compelling need to write (ironic, maybe, that most of these individuals offer most of their writing freely, with no paywalls for the bulk of their work). Those are the writers and poets whom I’m finding to be the most interesting—because they’re not writing for the masses expecting monetary gain, with a pre-packaged audience they’ve gained elsewhere. They’re just writing for me, because our paths crossed here (you’ll see what I did just there in a moment).

Today, I wanted to share another poem, so know it’s “Kert is being vulnerable” time again. They’ve come recently in my random “A Sunday Short” posts, but this one couldn’t cuz I knew it wasn’t going to be so short. When I share a poem, it doesn’t mean I think it’s “Amazeballs!” I do enjoy reading my own poetry, but the ones I end up sharing are usually one’s written to suit the mood I’m in at that moment. I don’t write a poem just to post it here, and the ones I post likely wouldn’t be considered anything special in comparison to anything else I’ve written, not that anything else I’ve written should be considered anything special to begin with—I’m still my own sharpest critic.

The other day, I was affirmed to continue to be in this vulnerable space by a fellow Substacker, one of the resident poets among the vastness that is the Subtstack fellowship, and someone I’m honored to consider a friend even though we’ve never met. Mike Speriosu is authentic and he shared in a Note, using his usual wonderful language, a beautiful way of defining poetry—its worth, its meaning, and its purpose:

Poetry is an incredible medium for expressing the inexpressible. Feelings and thoughts I’ve had, some going all the way back to childhood, that I felt very alone in. Turns out that even if there are no words that exactly describe what’s going on in one’s experience (are there ever really such words anyway?), there are words that draw the shadow cast by those experiences. And in seeing that shadow, others can say, Oh my God, I can’t believe someone else has felt this way! My feelings cast the same shadow! I’m not alone!

~ Mike Speriosu (find him at

Mike Speriosu

and at his Substack titled

Iterations

)

A second S’-Stack poet, Marjorie at

Pezzoli Art Newsletter

, as we were talking about a form of grief known only to certain parents, wrote that poetry “helps us to keep our heads above water.” I agreed, writing back: “Poetry doesn’t take one out of the water; indeed, that’s the Source of all poetry—the waves, the tides, the currents, the ripples…, the boiling. The best of poetry, and from writing it, does, however, allow one to breathe.”

And I should add, it also allows one to see all the others who are in the water, right there with us.

My poems are moments of time captured from my own life. That’s how we write best, when we write what we live; when we write who we are. Every poem, or even prose piece of mine, is autobiographical in nature. And no one should find themselves, ever, in a place of apology or embarrassment when they are simply expressing their autobiography. That still doesn’t take away the feelings of vulnerability. Yet, what of worth is worth living or experiencing if it doesn’t produce some form of deep feeling? (I really gotta watch Dead Poets Society again!)

I don’t pretend to even think I might write for other’s to see themselves or their own experiences through any words I lay down. In the end, it is ALWAYS up to the reader to determine the worth of the words they’ve allowed inside, or to see familiar shadows cast from similar life experiences. I’m not naive in this relationship I might have with you here—those of you who read anything of mine. The worth or value you gain is solely because of you, solely due to the energy you’ve invested and the interest you have. And your stamina. As I’ve said before, I’m at a place now where I have a need to write regardless of the number of readers who may come to this space. This isn’t to say I don’t value readers—it is to say the compulsion would exist even if I were the only one who reads it. And that has to be okay. It IS okay.

At times I go back into my archives and reread some of what I’ve written. That is always a fascinating thing to do—for a variety of reasons. And poignant are the times I wrote about when my Dad was still alive and dying among us. At those times, when I’m rereading, I become SO grateful for having written those words of shared experiences. SO grateful!

In wanting to share another poem today, I turned to the documents I created to house, in hard copy format, the poems I’ve written. A couple years ago, I wanted to see what they looked and felt like out of the digital realm and onto paper so I started to compile them from my various journals, digital and handwritten, and printed them up. It’s funny that the poem here was the very first poem I turned to in the third volume of mine. I asked myself which should I choose that fits my mood today, which fits my current state of things, which resonates strongly with these current times of mine—these uncharted times we find ourselves in? I asked these questions before I started looking.

This is what showed itself to me as the poem that needed to be shared today. As always, thanks for being here in relationship with me.

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Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

this path we begin, now

this path we begin, now,
is uncharted by any mortal
yet has been walked by all those
who have gone before;
their tracks hidden.

if we could talk to our ancestors
and ask them to show us the way,
to save us from heartache and pain,
to make the way easier from them having gone
before,
i believe they would say:

“why would we do that
and rob you of all that gives your life
meaning and joy and necessary sorrow?
we have walked this path before you,
yes,
but have burned the maps we made of it.
our moments are not your moments
so our path was always different,
though if you removed some dust
you’d see our footprints there, 
under your own weary soles. 
our soles were weary then too.

travel on, now, without us 
knowing yet we are always with you.
live each moment fully
and not know the step to take 
next.
it likely would be off the path anyway
if you tried to go just there. 
rather, allow each moment to arrive of its own—
it will anyway—
and welcome it as you would 
a thick and warm blanket on a cold grey day,
or the unexpected guest bearing unseen gifts.

then take the step.

create your own map, too,
as you go along; 
it is wise to remember from whence you came.
but do not forget to burn it
when you reach the destination
you too will never arrive at. 

you’ll still have one more uncharted step to take,
and no one else could use your map 
anyway.”

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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Live, Laugh, and Love

Always and Ubuntu,

~ kert

And with Ahimsa!

🙏🏼

Postscript: The thought occurred to me, after this essay was polished (such that it is), and then scheduled: we hear the phrase “we’re in uncharted territory” a lot. And a LOT, recently, given the state and flavor of our country’s national discourse. I realized we’re alway in uncharted territory—we’ve ALWAYS never been here before. It has always been up to those who are in the moment, with clear eyes and open hearts, to help us all find our way through—even if we’re the only ones we’ve been waiting for. There are no maps, though some vestiges of guides from before can still be drawn upon for strength and encouragement.

We can do this, right? With clear eyes and open hearts…right?

Mine alone—what there is of it anyway.

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