Touching Hearts Through Poetry

Book excerpt: I can remember writing poetry as early as the age of fourteen. For me, writing poems was either an expression of young love or a means of escaping farm life. I do know I write what I feel deep in my heart. Sometimes I would daydream about what life would be like after leaving the farm. At that time, I did not appreciate or value the importance of farm life. Then falling in love for the first time gave me words that would flow like water. That was the beginning of my poetry. Then came my retirement from the Air Force. I took a job as a substitute teacher to test the waters and see if I wanted to go back to the classroom. On May 23, 1995, was my last substitute teaching positions for the year. The last period of the day was a literature class, and yes, you guessed it, it was an assignment to write a poem. After directing the students on what they were to do, I sat back, thought about my daughter, who was also graduating, and at that moment, I wrote with them. The poem that came out of that session, "Life Captured," was the first in this book. After that, the words would sometimes overwhelm me. It did not matter where or when. I would sometimes wake up from a deep sleep, and there were words on my heart. Driving down the street, I would have to pull off the road. And can you imagine sitting in church, concentrating on the words of the pastor, and poem comes into your heart? That is what it was like for next few years. When the word came, I made every effort to put them on paper. If I did not have a notepad, I would write on whatever was available, a store receipts, the back of an envelope, or even a paper bag. It did not matter; I just knew I had to capture the words. You see, there was a problem with these abrupt encounters with words. I found, through experience, that I could not ignore them because if I did, they would be lost. Yes, the words that were flowing so freely at the time would be gone if I did not take heed at that exact moment. So I learned incredibly early that it did not matter when or where the words came; I had to stop everything and write them down. So you see, my poetry comes to me at times when the spirit urges it. I cannot just will a poem to be. It must be stirred up in my spirit. My poetry is a combination of spiritual and emotional love. The love for people and my love of God. I never know which will spark the flame, and that does not matter, but I do know I must be ready to put pen to paper when it happens.