Poetry — A Powerful Antidote to Pain
As proven by the way a simple poem spoke to this woman’s trauma
I knew it was meant to be from the minute I was notified that I had won a place in the Art and Text contest of 2019 at the Norwalk Public Library, a place that was once my hometown and the public library — my sanctuary inside that hamlet.
Little did I know, it was meant for more than me. Two other women’s lives were intricately braided into this story, long before I submitted my entry.
It was further amplified by the fact that I had spent the previous two years since the dismantling of my 30 year marriage, traipsing around the country living in Minnesota to obtain a degree in nondestructive testing, working pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico, and a short stint in Lafayette, Indiana before returning to the state I had lived in for 28 years prior to my divorce.
In all of the states I had lived during my transition from stay-at-home mom to divorced nondestructive test inspector — Texas, Minnesota and Indiana, I came to cherish the public library. Each one welcomed me with helpful librarians, study carrels, computers and printers enabling me to get through tech school, pay taxes and even find entertainment, (because what is a library if not access to BOOKS??) and I have a book with me all the time.
The libraries were stepping stones throughout my journey.
Call it a homecoming. Call it serendipitous. Call it God. Call it whatever you want, but it happened to me and I have to share. My winning a place in the Art & Text seemed to solidify my circling back to the state I had spent most of my adult years. To be chosen in the city where I had originally landed in 1988 seemed all the more serendipitous.
That was nothing in the face of what would become known.
“…Not all questions were meant to have answers, And not all of life, Was meant to be questioned.” — Robyn Weiss
After my poem was chosen to be part of the exhibit, it was handed to a painter. She was to paint a piece to accompany it. We had never met, and we would not meet until the unveiling of her painting at the exhibit a few months away.
My poem was in many ways a culmination of my adventures, based on my stop in Lafayette, Indiana. It was a place I could have called home due to the cadre of friends that adopted me immediately. Brenda and Greg owned a tiny house they rented to me. Their friends were all musicians who spent weekends canoeing and kayaking on local rivers.
“Hey, do you want to canoe down the Wildcat River this Saturday?” they asked one day after work.
“Sure, but I don’t have a kayak,” I said.
“We have extras! Our friends do, too,” they offered.
That Saturday, they pointed to Dave and his two-man canoe. “You can paddle with him,” they instructed.
It was a glorious day. We paddled to a little sand pile, picked through rocks, swam in the river and finished at a local Chinese restaurant, squeezing 6 of us into a booth meant for four.
Back in Greg & Brenda’s kitchen, Dave took a large feather and asked us, “Have you ever seen one fall from a heron in flight?”
No.
He climbed up on a chair and let it drop from his hand.
It swirled, and circled, seemingly dancing on the way down.
We all laughed.
It was such a simple delight, unexpected and wonderful.
I felt like a kid. “Do it again!” I shrieked. It danced again, on the way down.
That moment stuck with me.
And a few months later this poem emerged from the memory. Read it here:
It is one thing to write a poem and submit it. It is quite another to stand in front of a live audience and read it. As the unveiling and reading drew near, I started to question myself.
Was my poem any good?
I felt a little nervous the day of the unveiling. What would the painter choose to paint? A bird? A feather? I had no idea what she would take from the poem or how it would inspire her, if at all.
Maybe she got the poem and thought, “What am I going to do with that?”
I stood and read my poem to the crowd of 60+ people gathered for the exhibit.
After the reading, I approached the painter. The event organizer had said she wanted to talk to me and I assumed it was a pleasant gesture, nothing more.
I was wrong. So wrong.
She handed me a slim volume wrapped in tissue paper and explained how in the year 2000 she was walking in Baltimore when a young girl stepped off a parking garage dropping from four stories right in front of her. The young girl, she discovered later, was a poet named Robyn Weiss.
Robyn struggled with depression.
Her suicide was a traumatic event that Jamie Kay MacKenzie, the painter, had difficulty living with and understanding. If she would have been 5 minutes faster, she would not have witnessed the death at all.
In her attempt to reconcile with what she had seen that fateful day, she began a painting about it. The painting that she originally created to come to terms with the young girl’s death went unfinished, and languished hidden away for years.
Years later, she was given my poem and asked to paint something to go with it. She said she got goosebumps when she read the poem, and knew she had to finish the painting about Robyn’s death.
I was in shock, incredulous.
And so grateful to be used by a Power greater than myself.
I can only hope our meeting made that Power smile.
Robyn Weiss was a strong poet, even at a young age. If you would like to discover her poems, her work is available here:
If you struggle with mental health, don’t wait. Call or text 988 now. Your life is precious. Promise.
