Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Anastasia (I love that name!) at Small Poems. Thank you for hosting! Anastasia looks back on her acceptance letter of her work and shares a poem.
I’m thinking about holiday gifts and I’m trying to make some of them. But as most sewers, crafts people, cooks, knitters, painters and all other artists know, disappointment can often tag along on one’s creative endeavors. Today, after not embroidering for a long time, I decided to try to embroider a flower. I was thinking of embellishing a bookmark. I found a picture of an embroidered flower that I thought was pretty and used it as a guide but thought mostly I’d wing it.
To me, the effort was just OK. A little sorry. Not horrible, but not exactly the flower or plant I was inspired by. After two hours of work, I felt like I’d wasted most of my morning. But isn’t that the way it goes?
I will try embroidery again soon, but since it’s Thursday and time for Poetry Friday, perhaps a poem about my experience might redeem my lost time, though, of course it just might add to it.
The fact is, and we all know it, especially you teachers out there, the sense of failure and disappointment is part of the learning and creative process. We all feel it and unless we accept it, we will never succeed at anything.
Below is my poem, another draft, another beginning.
THE ALMOST BEGINNING
Did you ever
try something
and fail?
Like write a poem?
Bake a cake?
Draw a flower?
And felt
the words weren’t right
The cake didn’t rise enough
and you created a spider
instead of a flower?
Congratulations!
You have arrived at
the Almost Beginning
of whatever you attempted.
That dull disappointment
in your stomach?
It will linger only if
you give up.
So next,
think about
what was wrong
with the words
with the ingredients or oven
with your crooked stitches,
and try again,
certain you can get there,
because maybe
days ago
years ago
you have been here,
at the Almost Beginning, before.
© Janice Scully 2023
Enjoy the holiday season!