Letters to a Young Poet

September 15, 2018
 
Ahavati  
Charlotte, North Carolina  
 
Dear A,  
 
     I am writing to you amidst an approaching hurricane, Florence, who is currently battering the Carolina's coastal regions with heavy wind and rain.  We are expecting 15" by Sunday.  She is a slow moving force inching her way across an uncertain path of terrain.  The wind is an angry mistress, and the rain a lover's tears upon being dismissed.  The rest is breaking chaos we listen to from behind closed shutters and doors.    
 
     So many friends were forced to flee the coastal areas, leaving their homes at the mercy of nature.  My heart is heavy for their loss, and the lives of those who didn't evacuate in time.    
 
     I cannot tell you how happy your return makes me.  The empty space was deeply noticed after your departure.  I think it's very important all poets realize their absense severs a stitch in the fabric connecting us all. Poets gravitate to that which resonates, and are drawn as kindred seeking solace. If we don't share our innate gift, how are we to ever know what could've manifested in our lives.  
 
     The Masters knew this by virtue of their own experience and relationships with mentors. Even beyond are  connections that span generations of poets who never met by virtue of time.  Imagine your favorite poet never having opened publicly, or even in a small poetic community, where I believe reside some of the best poets in the world.  Poets who intimately pen away, and in doing so awaken others by inspiration, who, may or may not, venture into the world themselves.  
 
     And to think the inspiration they carry is in every breath they use to create, all the imagery, each metaphor, every syllable.    
 
     I remember first reading your poetry, and thinking how brave you were for sharing an ordeal you were lucky enough to survive.  This was the very beacon that shown out to those who've also experienced a similar circumstance.  I watched poets migrate and support your journey from the heart of their own. Together you all became One in strength and support of one another; you grew.  
 
     And, it was beautiful to observe.  
 
     You grew beyond the timid hesitance of sharing pain into a confident certainty.  This, and only this is the magic of poetry.  It awakens the spirit, frees the mind, paves the way for inevitable change.  This, this is the test of the poet: to accept that change, and release the beauty of their Muse wherever it should choose to go.  For we do face dry spells, and yearn for its return.  
 
     We must always walk forward. If we remain we become stagnant.  Up ahead another Muse waits beyond the wilderness.  In the interim we absorb, we support, and we believe by faith in the power of poetry to sustain our need, whether written or read. And, most importantly, we do not cower from storms that present themselves.  We do not hide our faces in shame for what we've experienced.  
 
     And we never, ever, apologize for how we chose to survive.  
 
     Instead, we strike lead to paper and we write, we spill, we bleed, and we allow poetry to pour from our veins.  Poetry that will stain our existence with truth; poetry that will outlive even us to inspire another generation, and so forth.  
 
     Never allow circumstance to rob you of your joy.  What or how others perceive us is not our responsibility. Our only debt as poets is to the written word from within ourselves.  Afterall, one does not light a candle and hide it under a bushel.  One lights a candle because one tiny flame illuminates the darkness and becomes a multifaceted Gem shattering color in all directions.  
 
     I look forward to your poetic contributions and presence once again.  You're a true gift to the community, for which most I know most of whom are grateful. Myself included.  
 
    Until such time, I remain in Truth and Love,  
 
    Ahavati  
 
P.S. Your hair is rad! Totally.  
 
#RainerMariaRilke

September 20, 2018

Oakland, California

Dear D.,

I hope that this letter finds you well. I have been thinking of you lately as the sunsets remind me of our short time together. All I can think about is the first time we kissed as the city lights felt as if they were miles away. For that one moment my heart felt steady and I just knew that it belonged in your hands. Just as the better days were approaching after the hurricane, I found warm shelter within your embrace.

I am forever thankful as I swiped right on Tinder, even though I did not know your story or recognized you in the flesh. Flash forward to 4 months later and our story was ending although I was scared to say goodbye, but I had to say goodbye because although the good memories were there the days leading up to this final climax were coming fast. I could do nothing, but cry that night when you said it was over because who was the guy I was falling for? Because I did not see or recognize the man you became. It is like the time you told me that you did not want to make me cry but looking back now it is a lie. All the memories associated with you are tainted.

This letter to you is to not wish you any ill or bad feelings, but to remember the good and bad times we had together. No matter how many times I have been going around in circles with questions like… Why you? Why her? Why did this have to happen? But neither one of us have the complete answers. Sometimes people like you are just meant to be in our lives for a short time like a stranger who has become a friend and lover. Then they go back to becoming a stranger again.

I have been trying to find it in my heart to forgive you because although you let me carry the weight of the world you also gave me every reason to be alive again. You gave me every reason to grow and carry myself like the woman we both know I could be. And for that I am thankful, but maybe it is best for us to move on like I know you already have. I wish you nothing, but happiness and hope that the sunshine still finds you wherever you are. I hope that you continue to follow the path you have created for yourself and just know that even though we are miles apart I know you will conquer the world one day.


Take Care,
Elena







#RainerMariaRilke  

September 19, 2018
 
Ahavati  
Cherokee, North Carolina  
 
Dear T,  

     Tonight, muscle covers the stars,  
flexing clouds expand condensation into swollen ice crystals;  their semi-warmth cooling summer.  Soon we shall smell roasted leaves and burnt marshmellows from singed twigs.  But, for now it seems a purgatory until the autumn equinox Saturday.  
 
     I've found poetry can also be seasonally cyclic.  The space between departure and arrival can be arid to frozen.  Yet genesis springs from cracked earth just as it survives ice; that is the miracle of life.  
 
     What are these lulls we experience, if not opportunity to grow into bigger houses of existence.  Do we not sleep in a cradle during infancy only.  Do not our play-pens and toddler beds serve us for a brief season. What then of education.  
 
     Are we born to know the alphabet. How long do we grapple with knowledge to comprehend and convey meaning.  How satisfying as quill and ink evolve into poetry from thought and blank spaces of being.  Do you remember the first source of verse swallowed subconsciously, the one that slid sticky as sap into the pail of your heart, pooling as something you'd never before tasted with Spirit before.  
 
     Never had you swallowed something so delectable, so stimulatingly mental as that moment of poetry-enlightened compulsion and desire, obsessive addiction to the fire of words running hot through your veins; you're a poet who saw through a glass darkly, now awake to the brilliance of crystal ink.  
 
   The wilderness is normal, fear not the loss of expression. But, rather, your unbelief that it's all part of your evolutionary blueprint.  For Jesus, the epitome of Love, said himself, do not pray for faith, but belief.  How then can there be faith without belief that it exists?  Therefore, you must believe that what you are in soul will always be: a poet.  
 
     The Muse tests your resolve as a lover.  Your commitment to the craft cannot wither in absence as dust unless you fail to polish its surface.  The inkwell cannot dry unless you cease to refill it. And, the paper will not crumble except you discard it.    
 
     Remember, absence enflames the great and extinquishes the weak.  
 
     But what shall you write of without the muse,  you ask?  I answer, write of what you love.  Why you love. Who you love, especially yourself.  That is the most vital component in truth, loving yourself despite what others think or how they judge.  For honest poetry comes not from pleasing others; it comes not from betrayal to be part of a crowd; it comes not by materialism or covetous want.  It comes from surrender and truth.  
 
     Acquiesce to the process of growth that you may advance in your creative current.  You are pure energy, an extension of all that was, is, and will be. The decision to relinquish forceable prodection merely for the sake of it will be difficult only once, becoming second-nature throughout life. Resistance causes pain and doubt; not the offering of self on the altar of words.  
 
     I wish you much success and happiness on your personal trek, and hold steadfast in belief that you will reach your creative pinnacle regardless of obstacles.  A poet cannot live truthfully if stationery; s/he will become stagnant with longing and grief.  
 
     I look forward to your next letter, whenever that may be.  I am anxious to read the poetry you receive as part of your growth, and rejoice in your commitment to pursue your heart.    
 
     Until such time, I remain anxious to say. . . I told you so! ( though I could never tell you what you already know ).  
 
    Very truly yours,  
 
    Ahavati  
 
P.S. In regards to the persecution you've described, what others think is a reflection of them, not you.  One can only become bitter by looking back.   Trust me on that.  
 
#RainerMariaRilke

September 12, 2018              
                
Jade Pandora             
Catalina Island, California                
                 
Dear Geoffrey,                  
     Yes, the postmark is confusing I’m sure. It’s been years, but I have taken the day boat across the channel over to Santa Catalina. To check on a number of areas of the island’s coastline from which several family members have requested in their wills that their ashes be scattered offshore by hired craft, and the vote fell to me. At least the weather is cooperating even as Fall will soon be upon us.  
 
     And gracious thanks that you have chosen me as a possible mentor. Time will only tell, and sooner rather than later, whether I will vindicate the direction you have chosen to follow.  
 
     At this early juncture, it is too soon to say or predict where whatever you learn will ultimately take you. But do I not suddenly sound like a pompous fop, when it is I who will also be swept along to who-knows-where in the education you will impart. Yes, of course you. This holds no fears for me. We’re only referring to expression in the written word. That should not be so bad, agreed?  
 
     And, glad to notice, you appear ready and resolved for the journey as well. Right now, from expressions of your esteem of me as a writer and poet, just so you understand: my slate is as clean as yours as we venture out into the great unknown. Step for step. I do have years more hands-on experience, and this will factor in in ways even I cannot fathom. So I look forward to putting my knowledge on the table, honored as I am for your very open and honest correspondence.  
 
    Which brings me to something very interesting pertaining to the first of the letters you have sent me at this point in time. For though you say your time as a poet initially covered a brief few years before unfortunate circumstances covering a longer period caused you to cease this endeavor of creative expression, you had since resumed, albeit tentatively.  
 
     At the time, my first reaction wanted to be a rousing cheer. Yet, with layers of your life causing this creative breakdown, I felt such a display of exuberance would be unseemly given the apparent long-term trauma in your life up until very recent times, I am surmising. Obviously, as our association over time is allowed to bear fruit, so might be revealed the myriad ‘shades of gray’. Poetry can be and often is a cathartic agent.  
 
     But even more so to me, at such a crossroad, as your personal admissions were beginning like a ‘spill’ of the rawest draft of a poem, you introduced your prolific interest in, and compositions of sonnets.  
 
     Talk about admissions; let me reciprocate. For all the years as a poet, I had never once been able to compose in any of the sonnet forms; so little my understanding of how a sonnet works. I would pour over Shakespear’s adored sonnets not realizing that’s what they are. It probably seems an irony, too, when I add that I have loved reading the venerated Bard since my early days in college. It is when I discovered I could read and understand his works. I’ve always likened this Eureka moment to ‘finding the Rosetta Stone’.  
 
     So I might consider the fact of hearing from a poet such as yourself as rather prophetic. Me, a mentor, yet you have sought me out to learn from someone that appears to be a promising vessel, now merely half full. Well you must admit, it still sounds a hopeful positive compared to half empty.  
 
     And on that note: my heart is lightened from this mutual exchange that should prove to be an adventure of limits soon to blossom into unlimited growth. I await your next missive, rife with more examples of verse from the edge of your complex existence, thus raising the bar of my own.  
 
       With warm regards,                
               Jade                
                 
 

September 15, 2018    
      
Jade Pandora      
Los Angeles, California      
     
Dear Geoffrey,      
     I was downtown earliest today (near where I was born) before the heat burned away the early morning overcast I love. To the Hall of Records, securing copies of files having to do with issues of property lines, easements, abatement, old applications and licenses for add-ons. Not to mention the odd transcripts of court cases of who got what in a divorce or subsequent child custody hearings.    
   
     I enjoy extending my abilities as free services to any of my family: no matter which side, no matter how many times removed. And that includes those considered family by marriage (as long as the union remains intact - yes, there has to be some degree of red tape, I do have my limits).      
       
     But let me thank you for several letters from you (which I have with me and will be addressing, in lieu of dessert, I promise) that arrived in quick succession during my transition between Catalina and where I am presently. Submerged, at an immaculate food court of a sprawling shopping galleria. Having lunch while writing this letter under the busy cacophony of city streets above, though not a sound do we detect.      
     
     Such is often the swirl of my social life as a writer, having always had a head for rows and columns in bookkeeping, the sound of an old-fashion calculator, and my preference for “even” numbers, and never rounding off grand totals. I’m primarily left-handed (being ambidextrous), not to mention dyslexic (talk about a mind at odds with itself).      
     
     However, I learned long ago, thanks to readers of my poetry (both back in the day, and current times), that my verse has a feel of careful word choices with lyrical (musical) results. Until then, I never understood what people were talking about when referring to my writing style. You mean - I have an actual “style”? Apparently, yes, I do. “Lyrical”. Well, that’s the foundation of my style is all I’ll admit to (she mischievously asides).      
     
     How fortunate, when I thought of and mentioned my calculating mind. For at last it reminds and takes me to one of those two pieces of mail from you - folded in thirds, in a white legal-sized envelope (the other being a 6 1/2”x 9 1/2” clasped/gummed manila envelope, with your folded hand-written poems on six sheets of Meade college-line, 3-hole notebook paper).      
     
     I read the letter within. Words of explanation. Of how your mind is wired to better handle fixed poetic forms, which, for you and the way you perceive, as mathematical calculations. I was transfixed by this because I [think] I had never realized poetry with such a label. But going by the poetry I’ve read of yours thus far, it does make sense, and it is what you believe within the confines you have always encountered. Yet, I wonder, what are and were the events that have you shackled to such limitations?      
     
     When you express the [almost] hopeless inability to grasp the concept of free form verse, and how to approach it (even though, since the nineteenth century, many poets seem to start with and prefer free form, but I plan to expound on this in another letter). Yet this seems understandable from what you’ve begun to reveal. I know my next words may seem premature on my part to say, as if in a revelation, but bear with me, please.      
     
     If I am able to help free up the block that holds you hobbled, and keeps you on one side of poetry’s fence, simply by showing you the ease of its transition, all possibilities become available. And now, therein lies the conundrum of my own ‘block’ regarding sonnets (and who knows what else)!      
     
     If I am able to assist you through the maze, so will I be able to sift my way through, and we will meet, equal to the task!      
     
     Such an “ah ha!” moment (so familiar in the snapshot moment in haiku, yes) serves us well. It makes it necessary for me to pull up short in preparation to make my trek back to my home in the valley before rush hour and gridlock begin.      
     
     What I have written here will go to the post, and then I will fly.  I shall look forward to hearing from you with immense anticipation (as unseemly as this may appear).      
     
          With my pen respect,      
               Jade      
     

September 18, 2018    
      
Jade Pandora     
Woodland Hills, California      
     
Dear Geoffrey,      
     I’ve concluded a brief jaunt out for vitamin supplements and healthy sustenance at a Whole Foods on Ventura Blvd. Things like radish sprouts, avocado, crookneck squash, veggie pot stickers, angel hair pasta, jasmine rice and yogurt kefir.    
   
     Now, while still on the boulevard after shopping, a whisper from the muse had me pull over to the curb to jot notes in my field journal. At least I am in a better position to do this than the first time, while in a downpour at night with nothing to write with. In fact I just realized, I’m under the same tree as I was that night, more than ten years ago. I remember because of the shops that line this section of the street.      
     
     By the way, I managed to write that poem I heard in my head, as the storm started to let up, and huge drops from the tree branches hit the roof of the car with loud individuality. My writing implement was a lip rouge that lasted just long enough. Giving its life, and bringing me my first poetry award (from Melbourne, Australia) four months later. I might send a copy to you one day.      
     
     Wait until you have your car back; you’ll be doing this a lot, I’m certain. You know, it’s less disruptive to sit huddled over your field journal in the quiet cabin of your own vehicle, rather than public transportation, with the noise and lurching motions.      
     
     But it probably works for you when it comes to the “edge” of some of your modern and generation bytes. You know: atmosphere. And at your age, you carry your life’s carpetbag everywhere. Filled with life-changing thoughts, decisions, and broken pieces of misfortune as if it’s shattered pottery to draw from.      
     
     Half an hour is now passed. I have picked up my mail but I have not gone upstairs to my apartment yet. I thought I would stay in the car, in the privacy of the carport where it is cool and dark (better for the groceries), even though it is a sunny mid-afternoon. And I have read the latest letter from you that just arrived. It has me introspectively thoughtful and somber.      
     
     You write of several significant life’s interactions, which I think I will wade into carefully, one foot, or rather subject, at a time. In light of the contents of this letter, Geoffrey, I am awash with the honesty and trust you unabashedly exhibit here. Already, I recognize that this is a test of both myself, and yourself.  I am glad because you remembered what I said, of how ‘This holds no fears for me.’      
     
     As it must not have held any fears for you, by the time you tried your first attempt that day not so long ago. The driving force that requires a young person to qualify the moment that blanks out everything else. The deed becoming the next natural step toward a final vindication. Once the pall descends, to stop the persecution. To put to rest the forced apologies for having been born.      
     
     All this to have survived, and yet, survival of everything that continued, unabated and unchallenged. How long could you be expected to hold your own dignity and sense of self? And keep the darkness in check. Complicated further by the initial introduction of alcohol, years before puberty. You cannot be blamed for careening so wildly off the rails. For going through it again a second time.      
     
     There was nothing to anchor you. Not to try for the angels where, to you, there was never a God. You were not looking for faith, the intangible. You needed the tangible. Something as solid as brick, as concrete, as steel! You took on Mother Nature, and plowed both you and vehicle into a mighty tree, a relative. If it had been man-made, it would have killed you outright. A gentle tree was not going to be host to your death.      
     
     You are so young still, but wizened far beyond your years as long as you believe you are worthless. You have been showing me proof that everything you are and will be, is worthy. I will do what I can to help you understand this, even as the persecution persists. Anything, to gird you and keep you from destruction. While building a foundation for years to come. To house your self esteem, and pride in your uniqueness of expression in the arts.      
     
     There will still be days to come of challenge. Many times you will question yourself. Nothing will come easy. But as long as I have breath, you have an ally in me. We will beat the weapons of your persecution into plowshare. With the creation from within.      
     
     I trust more than anything that I will hear from you again soon. You are destined to climb up, over and be free of your self doubts one day. Believe.      
     
          Ever your champion,      
               Jade