When I stand before the flag above
With the beautiful anthem spilling love
The most perfect, imperfect majesty
Those stars and stripes call out to me
Sweet melodies flow into drums
Cymbals crash and tension thrums
Each boom and hiss is a squeeze on my shoulder
With the rise of each strain, I grow bolder, and bolder...
Hotter and colder!
Ice into fire
Pride on my skin, I begin to transpire
Heat and pepper
Triumph and glory
Musketballs, cannonshots, all things unholy
Heartbreak and heatstroke
Frostbite and spring
Our country hides away in each of these things
America is fire
America is war
America is glistening waves on the shore
America is hunger for riches and fame
America is courage, grit, and family names
I see her there, in the red and blue
And wonder if she sees me too...
As the anthem keeps chanting my blood runs hot
Dreams of shining seas and timber trees and hair tied up in pretty knots
Opportunity
Equality
The land that's spied by men at oar
Gold rush
River gush
The hope that lies on distant shores
Revolutions
Bold solutions
Reaching for the sky
America
Who never stops
Who will never cease to try...
She calls to me
Like a siren of lore
be brilliant!be brave!Be something more.
She calls to me
She screams for me
And this time
For the first time...
I answer.
Warm, languid color swirls in eddies through the open air, hearts beating as one, breath strong and steady.
Music. Flowing, soft, growing in a grand crescendo that spirals up the melody, climbing up and up and up and up and…
silence.
Not a hair moves. The night buzzes with nothingness. Kids stand motionless, locked in place by the sure, guiding hands of the conductor. Lips glued to mouthpiece. Fingers frozen on keys and–a flick! Baton up!
Just a twitch, and the whole body breathes as one.
Then explodes.
A thousand notes, a thousand living and beautiful strokes of sound painted on the crisp night air, bellowing in an organized cacophony. Pounding drums, bopping trumpets, smooth mellophone, staccato flute, sultry saxophone; it goes on and on and on, lighting up the freezing black.
Does this not feel right? Parents and students tap their toes with a smile, hearts swelling with the music of a life, music that transcends the notes on the page or the brass of a bell. Souls ignite with the glint of metal under floodlights, unite in the joy of a tune played just right. Listen close–let it steal your breath.
I thought I’d seen so much
Until I saw it all
Used my youth as a crutch
So my ignorance would not fall
I never knew
I never knew
I never knew the world
In its endless, infinite sprawl.
Or
So
I
thought...
I knew everything, deep down
Memories receded
I’d seen life and love and truth
In little moments, long retreated
I never knew the dawn
I never knew the night
I never knew the happiness
Of watching stars fade into sunlight
But
Now
I
Know…
Swimming beneath the velvety black
Dusk gives way to day
Glimmering, burning, glistening jewels
Fade in the sun’s first ray
I never knew the dark
I never knew the light
I never knew the sunrise
Until it made my follies die away
And
I
Could
See…
Years are not what all men need
To triumph in wisdom and relish in life
For I am so young, and still
I’ve seen my share of victory and strife
I collected little moments
I cached them in my thoughts
I knew all that I needed to know
An epiphany cut through me like a knife:
Daybreak
Dawn
Twilight
Night…
All joy and wisdom and meaning comes from
These shared experiences
Of the human life
What is the meaning of life?
I don’t know.
Maybe happiness
Love
Success
Charity
Giving and taking
Making something new
Watching ideas grow
Take shape
Transcend space
and time
and your own life...
I don’t know:
I’m much too young, aren’t I?
Why are we here?
I don’t know.
Maybe for a purpose
Because life
Evolved us into being
A higher power
A special role
A calling
A perfect passion designed for us
Another worker bee in a
Grand colony
Just to be
and live
and exist....
I don’t know:
I’m much too inexperienced, aren’t I?
Who are you to give advice?
I don’t know.
Maybe just a girl
Behind a computer
Typing the thoughts in her brain
Building worlds and characters into existence
Right there
On a little webpage
With a blinking cursor
Scrambling for inspiration
Wracking my brain
Make haste
and write
and build…
I don’t know:
I’m much too inarticulate, aren’t I?
What do these questions have in common?
I don’t know.
Maybe they’re special
Because everyone
In the whole wide world
Has a different answer to each
A passion
A calling
A reason to be,
Live
and work
and breathe…
I don’t know:
I’m much too young for this, aren’t I?
What is the meaning of life?
Maybe mine is
To be happy
To be a writer
To make haste
To create
To love and to hate
To exist in this cacophony
and wait
and simply be…
I think so.
Why are we here?
Maybe I am here
To be an archaeologist
A microbiologist
An author
A soldier
A researcher
Historian
Zoologist
Astronomer
To find my passion
and explore the world
and be fearless…
I think so.
Who am I to give advice?
…
I do know:
I am just a girl.
A speck in the infinite river of time
One bright star in a never-ending sky
An author
A poet
A musician
I give my two cents on life
and live
and laugh, because...
I do know something.
I know myself.
I’m a girl
A speck
A star in a beautiful,
gem-studded sky
I’m unique
and wonderful
and meant for great things...
I know so.
The only infinity on this Earth is the infinity of the questions without answers.”
-Autumn Brutyn
The River of Life
A poem by Autumn Brutyn
Sitting on the shore of the endless sea
A question came on the wind to me
A question so rhetorical, so subjective, so sweet,
A question without an answer, forever incomplete
Impossible to answer, yet it lingered on my thoughts:
What can encompass life?
Life, so complex, so filled with strife!
A frog on the banks of a never-ending stream?
One speck of dust in the golden sunbeam?
No, not that, that’s not right.
Because what of the endlessly multiplying people?
Billions and billions, like rust spots on a steeple
The infinite wisdom in a dragonfly’s eye?
Each meaningless fleck of dirt in a rancid pigsty?
No, not that, that’s not right.
Because what of the young ones, the old, the bold?
Each spirit, so unique, with hearts warm and cold…
Can nothing emulate it, that tumultuous diversity?
The way the Earth rumbles and shakes, all topsity-turvety?
Maybe, maybe not, but one thing comes close.
Because time will never cease to fly,
I thought, just like the river chugging by
The river, with its millions of glistening bubbles
Bobbing and weaving, like children, no troubles
The river, highway to the sea, comes close
Because it ebbs and flows, angry before it calms,
Has droughts and floods and never-ending qualms
Pebbles shift and change, silt travels downstream
Just like humanity, restless in their dream
That river, roiling and bubbling, comes close
Because...
Life is imperfect
Life is diverse
Troubled
Beautiful
Never a curse
Life is drowning
Life is sweet
Hopeful
Dismal
Take it from me:
There never has been, and never will be, one true answer
Life’s secrets are elusive, captivating, like a masked dancer
But if you seek an answer, please, hear my plea:
Turn to the river! The water! The path to the sea
Because the river,
To the sea
Comes close
Life and Lemons 