[stylist] new poem: Living It

[Jacqueline Williams]

Myrna,
Forgive me a cliché, This just blows my mind. I am familiar with the
assignments of either ten or twenty random words, but seldom have I read one
with such wisdom and a philosophy of life embedded in it.
Your choice of words was not an easy one, but your use of them for examples
taking us on your trip of life is masterful.
You are indeed an exceptional poet.
At a later time, I will send you my random word poem and the one written
backward from the same words and theme.
I must get to a book revision for an August deadline, and until then, I just
hope to keep up minimally.
Keep up the significant work that you consistently produce.
Jackie

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of KajunCutie926 at aol.com
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2012 6:36 AM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: [stylist] new poem: Living It

Last night during our division board meeting I  mentioned a poem I'd 
written that had really sprained the brain.  We were  given fifteen words to

choose from and at least one of the words must be  included in a poem.  You
could 
use one word or all fifteen or any number in  between.  Well, in a very 
fun-spirited email the gauntlet was thrown down  and like the bull charging
the 
red cape I decided to give all fifteen a  go.  
Here are the words we had to use, followed by the  poem.  It is both 
attached and in email.

The required words to choose from:  compare,  quality, brick, cookie, tea, 
division, arch, mortality, orchestra, substitute,  split, diving, flat, 
juvenile, siding.
 
Living It
 
 
How  does one compare the quality of life
to the quality of living it? Perhaps  there is
no comparison because the life we are given
is not our choice but  the living of it is.
There is a division, an imaginary arch that  will
split the entities of choice and predetermined
reality. This will  impact the other but not always
determine the journey of our mortality.  Extraordinary
circumstances may do this but even then we are often
given a  chance to change the seemingly unchangeable path.
The brick, on the hand,  would likely not choose to be a brick,
but it has no recourse, no offered  options. Nor does
the cookie and tea have that choice as they are but the  culinary 
products  of another's whim. Neither can substitute a different path.
Our avian friends  or their friends of nature cannot truly conduct
an orchestra of their  choosing for the arias are already written
and the conductor already holds  His baton. But how fortunate are we! 
We  can choose to go diving into life headlong knowing we may land
on our feet or  flat upon our backs. We can peel away the siding of
our juvenile dreams, our  adolescent schemes, allowing
each to spill into our adult truth, into the  life we have been
handed, and there the magic begins!
We mold and we  sculpt. We paint and we write. We tidy
up some imperfections, leaving a few  to keep us honest.
And we live! We take each moment into our hands and  we
breathe of it. We feel the wind and we touch sky. And we thank
the  master conductor for allowing us to offer our own
contributions to living and  leaving our imprint on a life that
we hope will be remembered well.
How  very fortunate we are, indeed!