Child In Red

As I expressed in class, I had a very strong personal reaction to "Child In Red" by Rilke. I had like this burst of energy from relating so much, The poem was inspiring. It made me want to get better, made me want to go to my friends who are struggling and say "Hey! Read this, it'll help!" I may just do that actually.

Firstly, as I said in class I wanted to run to both Luke and my therapist and talk about what it made me feel. I felt like I was on a high. It was an artistic experience that I'd never had before. I was emotionally exhausted, I wanted to go home and sleep, and I wanted to read more poems (which I tried but I couldn't focus on them. There was still so much more to feel)

And yet the last stanza kind of upset me. It made me think of sickness instead of health. So I tried to reming myself that the red dress is health. But it wouldn't stick. Something deeper is going on with me in that last stanza. I'm anxious and excited to find out.

Now on to writing our own. I didn't want to, because I didn't want o ruin it with what I see as my crap and cliches. But I guess i knew I had to. I went back to ripping myself apart unfortunately , felt as if it was no where near good enough of course. But as Luke pointed out, once I shut up, I got something fairly good. Something very far from done, but something good.

Then I noticed that the two stanzas I have started with "I've..." and then "Now I" and the next one I started writing started with "Now." So I waslooking for an I've to fit, but so far nothing fits.

But I'll have to just keep going.

I've held this familiar pose until muscles rusted.

Now I treat the child with an old can.

I've rode along an immobile staircase,

Kissing my restrictive hand.

Now I walk over this shadow,

and stretch my landlegs in the sun.

That's all I have in any sort of order for now, but here are some other random lines that I like at the moment:

Now I count the birds and the feathers,

Though slowly,

Steps like a crawl.