Poetry or Just Life

Musings of a loving mother, nurse, and friend through life stages and events - births, holiday family gatherings, friendships, aging, and dying.

Poetry. The word alone often makes people cringe. They say they do not like it at all and would never sit to read a poem or, heaven forbid, memorize one. Interesting. I do not think there is a person alive who has not been introduced to poetry, even from the womb. Our mothers sang to us before we were born. We hear music throughout our lives. Even music without words brings us visions of something familiar, something warm, something pleasant, something happy or even something sad.

Life itself is poetry. Everything we see is a poem, if we think about it. Whether in prose or rhythmic and metered, poetry conveys a message and elicits human feelings. We all share these same feelings from time to time and thus we share poetry. Poems speak to us individually and interpretation of any poem is very personal. I cannot tell you what a poem will mean to you. I cannot tell you what a poem I read twenty years ago meant to me then or if I will have that same interpretation or feeling about it if I were to read it again today. Poetic interpretation is affected by experience and age.