Poetry Month

I want to wrap up Poetry Month with this one. It's inspirational and I appreciate its sentiments, but it does not define me. Personally, I do not keep score. I couldn't any more tell you how many of anything I've experienced than the Man in the Moon. Statistics are largely unimportant to me. 

I define myself by my capacity to remain open, and to love and learn. I define myself by my ability to remain flexible and tender. I define myself by my heart. I am not forged like steel. I see myself as more tenderized yet cohesive. ~~GH

Art by Karol Bak

I do not define myself by how many roadblocks have appeared in my path;
I define myself by the courage I have found to forge new roads.

I do not define myself by how many disappointments I have faced;
I define myself by the forgiveness and faith I have found to begin again.

I do not define myself by how long a relationship lasted;
I define myself by how I have loved, have been willing to love again, and how I still love.

I do not define myself by how many times I have been knocked down;
I define myself by how many times I have struggled to my feet.

I do not define myself by how often I have appeared a fool;
I define myself by the number of risks I have taken.

I do not define myself by the number of mistakes I have made;
I define myself by the knowledge I have learned from trying a new way.

I am NOT my pain…

I am Not my past…

I AM that which has emerged from the fire.

-Author Unknown

April is Poetry Month

Powerful poem by North Carolina's Poet Laureate Joseph Bathanti, "The City Jail," about Pittsburgh and a schoolboy and Catholicism, and faith, and fear, feelings of inadequacy and guilt, and working in a prison, and being trapped within -- well, read it for yourself in the Dead Mule. It begins below.~~GH

The City Jail spiked out of Fifth Avenue
in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh.
When we drove by it, my father would pause
and signify in its direction,
never uttering a word. Riding shotgun,
my mother on cue blurted she'd glimpsed
our imaginary condemned prisoner
in the jail's uppermost barred window.
[Click to finish reading]