Natal day (Poem)

It's the third birthday of this blog today, so I thought that warranted a pome :-) I have been blogging since 2004, but my first blog, Zucchinis in Bikinis, was taken private in 2010 when this blog started.

three years ago today I wrote a post about fairyland in my backyard, and
put out the welcome mat, virtually speaking, in this unpretty backwater,
built in haste to cradle my happier thoughts in pink and purple.

three years ago
when my heart was bleeding black onto the screen, and worlds were confused and confusing
and people thought they knew all about me, and what was best for me
what I was doing wrong
what I deserved
because of what dripped out, squeezed from me as illness and loss clenched its fist
into my older, less considered space
my blog firstborn, brought into life
when Blogger was a baby and everyone new to this
all of us learning together, making the same faux pas
in a warm and amateur symphony
writing life out loud.

so, three years ago, I thought to divide my consciousness
my self, sliced between the shadowlands, taken away to a quiet room
and, here, in my new place,
I thought to broadcast a steady stream of light
to write a hymn of adoration to my children,
a harmony of gentleness and constancy
baking and stories and lovesongs;
play, art and peace.

three years ago, I nursed the illusion
that such splicing is possible, let alone desirable;
that I could write the sun without the storm,
the sweet without the sourness
and make it a true story, and make it me.

three years, and I have learned
that ego and id resist sundering with unbreakable determination;
that to be me, here, I cannot but draw in threads of all colours and brilliancies
the fizzing oranges and flaring pinks, yes, but the scarlet of rage too
the cool greens and calm blues, but also the dark greys
and the black that crawls out at 2am and flicks its tongue

three years, and I have written about play
and books and growth and baking and love;
and loss and anger and injustice and pain,
work and illness and frustration and exhaustion.
three years, and this skin
has stretched to fit me, and I wear it, own it,
my avatar
my words, weaving a simulcrum of me
that is not a stranger, here on my screen.

- Kathy, 4/5/13