We are all poets                             

                    By Yankau Josephine Wong

 

No tricks.  

We have all been there.

Like an ill-prepared mountain climber.

our backpack is filled with fear

of our thoughts, our memories, our experiences.

But you will get the gist of it, if you stay the course,

and the rest is like taking a slow bath,

simply let the water of things be

and open the receptor of your skin.

 

Observe your mood.

Stay with the rainbow after the rain

of life troubles.

Familiarize with all those colors.

Try not to reject the red or favor the blue.

Stay with it

even if it was a rare double rainbow,

overwhelming you with color crossing:

anger wrapped sadness, conceit shielded inferiority,

bittersweetness.

 

Observe your thoughts.

Follow the stream of consciousness

like how the night sky reviews itself fully

when all the artificial lights around it are dim.

Now marvel at all the stars, take them in,

refrain from looking for a pattern, don’t

search your brain

for the stored images of the Big Dipper, the Orien’s Belt

to match it, or to name it. Let it be

milky, or cloudy.

 

Observe your actions

like an interested wanderer coming from far-off land.

Just notice them,

as if you didn’t know what a firm handshake means,

or what a hard fist pounding on a pillow says.

An action doesn’t have to be followed by a reaction.

And if you must, ask a young child

to draw you a new playbook.

 

Beauty will visit your senses

once you de-numb, de-calcify the burdened palette of life.

Pain will also avail itself to you

when you stop the repression.

You now have the two main ingredients,

beauty and pain,

to write a poem.

Now go!