With the reluctance of a nested
fledgling testing her wings,
I turned the final page in
Brown Girl Dreaming.
The poetic memoir born of
Jacqueline Woodson’s days,
her remembering
her seeing
her questioning,
has this girl
wondering what is in me to
uncover,
overcome,
embrace.
How far back was the seed of wordsmithing
planted in my appetite?
And what of its root?
The notion that I could
that I should pick up
pen and paper,
set fumbling fingers to keyboard,
wrestle with what was and is,
to set it in words?
How deep is the root’s burrow?
Its resilience strong enough to resist
draught,
pestilence,
doubt?
Forever tangled in analysis?
Or might I have the power
to begin afresh
to uncover, dig up
the depths of the writer
in a mulched soil?
Revival in verse.
© Copyright 2022 Mona Hodgson
NOTE TO JACQUELINE
Jacqueline, celebrate! You did catch words. You made them float. Thank you for the revival in verse.
Friends, I’d love to hear from you. What is one of the books you’ve read that helped nudge you into a reset or revival in your spirit?