Last Page

Composed 4/14/16
Description: For Day 14 of NaPoWriMo. Can you believe it? I’m actually caught up! And I even have a poem stewing for tomorrow! Anyway.

Today I filled up the last page of my “creative” notebook: a small, lined book I usually carry around with me in order to scribble down ideas, lists, a few lines that pop into my head, or even complete poems.

The Notebook

This notebook became a way to write down and contain my ideas in an organized place; in other words, a way to avoid writing things down on “Scraps of Paper“: receipts, random loose-leaf, napkins, etc. (i.e. things that get lost easily). Usually these are first drafts that get transferred to a Word document where they’re edited and then (ta dah!) sent to you.

Anyway, I so rarely reach the end of any notebook that this is kind of a momentous occasion for me. The beginning of this notebook coincides pretty closely with my resurgence into writing and my beginning leap into poetry. Obviously, two-hundred-something poems later, it’s been a huge success.

So what do you do when you reach that last page? That thing that symbolizes so much time and hard work and even a new section of your life?

Well, you write an ode of sorts to it, naturally.

Last page
It’s taken awhile to get here
And I’ve seen too few of your kind
I hope to not disappoint
With these last few scribbled lines
Then again
It’s not the end
You’re more like a bookmark to me
This is only one small finale
The start of many beginnings
Still
I feel good
You’ve given me so much pride
So thanks for the memories
Thanks for the ride
I guess this is goodbye then
I’ll move on to something else
But I’ll always hold you high
Up on my bookshelf

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The Center

Composed 4/8/15
Description: For Day 8 of NaPoWriMo. Interestingly, this is also my 200th poem! Wow! I never thought when I started this blog that it would inspire SO MUCH writing, but it really has! Hope you enjoy this special milestone poem, which, unsurprisingly, prominently features rain. (You know what I’m talking about, Midwest!) Seriously, though, I love the rain, especially because… well, you’ll see.

You may deny it with your dying breath
But you have heard God’s voice
He commands with every thunderclap
An authority that silences, humbles, and awes
He is the pitter-patter of rain on the windowsill
That comforts and lulls
The wind that howls and whispers
To refresh or to chill

How can you not believe?
When faced with nature’s power
For life
For death
How can you not feel small?
In someplace you know
He’s the center
The voice of it all

Last of Days

Composed about 5/8/14
Description: A poem composed around the last few class days of the last semester of my college career.

What am I to say on these last of days?
as I write the last words on the last chapter’s page?
I feel no elation or intense sorrow
about the events taking place in the morrow.
I hear voices – bright, awed, and reserved –
but I stare at bare walls – quiet, undisturbed.
What should I think as I rest my head
for the final time on my four year bed?
It was a good time. I hope I remember
the laughs, the facts, every spring and December
I feel different. Have I changed for the better?
In some ways I’ve got it down to the letter.
But I’ve also learned of my imperfections
and falter to swing in new directions.
But as I leave I know I understand more –
of friendship, myself, and future doors.
I owe so much to my friends and my Lord,
And now He says it’s time to move

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