Poems and Prayers and Promises

I've been writing poems and saying prayers and making promises since I was a little girl, and while I've never "passed the pipe around" (that early lyric was changed for later versions), whenever I hear this song I am reminded of happy days and good memories. It was popular in 1971, a year before my college graduation and marriage. Listening to it still brings back those peaceful feelings of hope and beauty experienced by a young woman with a whole lifetime waiting to unfold.

Now, having lived a fairly healthy portion of that lifetime, I am grateful for music that allows me to recapture those feelings of my youth when I need them. And I'm saddened that John Denver only lived to the age of 53, despite the fact that it "turned [him] on to think of growing old." Life isn't always fair, is it?

Agatha Christie knew whereof she spoke when she said, "I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."

I think Mr. Denver would have agreed.

First poem I ever wrote, at the age of 7:

My Sister

I have a little sister.

She has a funny smile.

She wants to go to school with me,

but she'll have to wait awhile.

For she is only one year old,

and what would teacher do,

if I brought her to school with me?

I wouldn't know; would you?

The prayer I am praying today:

Comfort for well-loved friends whose son's (and brother's) life, like John Denver's, passed too quickly. Healing for Catherine. Strength and stamina for my own children, who are old enough to well and truly need it.

The promise I am making:

"To make love live and breathe in all I do" (a line from one of my own poems).

Because loving, living, and breathing are what poems, prayers, and promises are all about.

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