Hi! This year (2022), I’ve decided to share a poem on my blog and podcast and read it aloud. It’s all a part of my quest to be brave and apparently the things that I’m scared about still include:
Thanks for being here with me and cheering me on and I hope that you can become braver this year, too!
Parent Not Expected
I know nothing about the weather
I was born in or how the sky whispered
or stormed. I know nothing
about the man who helped make me,
other than his name and he smoked
cigarettes, constantly, until he got skin
cancer. I know his mother had thick,
dark hair, immigrated here, which was so different
from the story of my birth certificate
and the ancestors who had been here
for centuries, taking their time to take
the land. I know nothing about how
my mother struggled to hide the secret of me.
My nose gave me away. My quirky clothes gave me
away. The way I didn’t fit gave me away. I know nothing
of the people who came before
me on one side, grandparents,
great-grandparents, random uncles
and aunts, their pains. They are unknown
stories. They are wind that I can’t feel. They are
stars that don’t tell their secrets.
I am their secret and they are mine.Hey, thanks for listening to Carrie Does Poems. These podcasts and more writing tips are at Carrie’s website, carriejonesbooks.blog. There’s also a donation button there. Even a dollar inspires a happy dance in Carrie, so thank you for your support. The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Eric Van der Westen and the track is called “A Feather” and off the album The Crown Lobster Trilogy.
While Carrie only posts poems weekly here, she has them (in written form) almost every weekday over on Medium. You should check it out!
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eric-van-der-westen/the-crown-lobster-trilogy-selection