Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor

I am taking this poetry thing a bit further. I came across the golden shovel way of poetry writing. It’s where you take a short poem in its entirety or a line from the poem called a striking line and create a new poem using words from the original poem. Each line in the new poem ends in the words from the original poem. It’s different, exciting and the possibilities of creating something new while keeping something old is my keep for the day.

I have been trying to keep words, idea, life, anything that personifies how I lived and dreamed with each passing day I had on this earth.

I’m also enroute to visit a dear old aunt who is transitioning for this world to the next. Her name is Jeanie. She is still alive but every single day we have with her is a gift worth keeping. I have no idea whether I will still see the light and twinkle in Jeanie’s eyes. I am struggling to hold back tears as death will surely win this round. But life is still a gift and I want to spend time remembering the light and twinkle that Jeanie gifted to all of us that knew her while she still lives.

We all take this life for granted. Myself included. As if it’s a guarantee. As if we own a day. As if tomorrow will be ours. As if the next day is ours. But to dwell about life in this moment of transition. To see is so close and yet be helpless is a reminder to keep anything while you lived. Not work as, it will go on after you. But life, a legacy or anything that will force someone to write some day of all the ways you lived, and maybe read back your words to other so they to do the business of living while they still breathe.

Jeanie has few days on earth with us. A month would be a treasure. I don’t agree with it but I accept it for what it is. We all have to leave this earth one day and sooner or later our time will be up. But what will anyone say when that time comes? What will they use as a reminder, a story, a lesson, to describe how you lived? What words will they keep as they read your legacy to others? For me, I hope they say, I turned and turned on my own, into my own, with words that allowed me to dream and live a life as only I could.

It’s for this reason I love this poem by Lucille Clifton. This idea of turning into your own self. At last. Turning out of white cage, turning out of the lady cage, turning at last on a stem like a black fruit in its own season at last.

See I am in my own season at last. I am that black fruit on a stem, that leaf letting the fruit breathe, the tree holding the fruit, the earth ready for its arrival. I am a fruit living out it’s wildest dreams like a pregnant woman on the day she gives birth to new life. I give birth to new life every single time I choose to write words that come from my mind to this space worth keeping. These words heal and sustain me in ways I could never have imagine. They motivate me and allow me to create a space where I soar through hurdles, soar through hopes, soar all the way up to the skies Iike eagles do every single time. I am an eagle, a blue sky, a life worth living because I choose to turn into my own, at last.

Golden shovel poetry style came into my life at a very opportune time. As I begin this journey to meet with Jeanie, begin to pay my last respects, I leave knowing what I will keep. Her light, her twinkle, for my own self, at last. When you turn on your own, even those gone before you, all those living still around you, will be proud to call you their own. It’s for her and the late Lucille Clifton, that I keep this golden shovel poetry, my debut here, at last. Keep turning into your own.

I keep turning

Like a day turns into

night and dreams of my

father, become stories of my own.