A Time to Reflect

Image credit: Clipart Kid

I opened up a time capsule today; a plastic bag filled with bits of paper with my poems written on them. For about fifteen years, between my late teens and early thirties, I wrote whenever and wherever the muse took me. Today, as a sixty year old, I am finding my way back to my muse’s voice and opening up the bag to hear again what was spoken so many years ago.

It wasn’t surprising to see that time was a predominant theme in my writings. I have been preoccupied with time ever since I can remember (pun intended). Other themes included nature and emotions, some connected to music, a spattering of poems on injustice and causes and some on the human soul.

My writing on social media these days have also been predominantly on time and so I am going to do the beBee thing and share some of the personal to start balancing out the professional. As I have written about the integrated me, these poems represent a younger personal me whose voice I have carried over into the older professional me.

I start with a poem I submitted to a local newspaper as part of a poetry contest. (I didn’t win.) Remember I said time capsule. This was written pre personal computers and social media.

“Read All About It”
spiritual fluxuations…..redeemable only
in fractions and fleeting opportunities
through distinct forms and underlying plans.
life threadlike…..ready to snap
transgressed by horrific tides and aggressive pacts.
legitimized by print…..its acts
circulated to masses who shrink in fear
unable to imagine incapable to grasp.
statistics emerging…..impregnated by lust
the transition from reader to victim abstract
a bridge without structure erected in shadows
its strength never doubted.
the struggle of morality…..wrestled in our minds
alongside projections of what’s wrong and what’s right
already decided in black and white. Sara Jacobovici - Montreal/1975

This second one comes from my clinical work, my engagement with a trauma survivor.

The Descent of Loss
Grieving the loss of potential memories, I find myself slowly re-entering time;
relieved that the descent, at times, is like that of a beautiful feather.
A feather, newly separated from its bird in flight, gently riding the wave of a breeze.
At its worst, the movement lumbers above while the tail’s movement creates its blurry passage.
At its present best, I try to keep up, often held back; pushing against its current.
“Breathe”, my body says as I physically engage in the breath of time.
Flow in, flow out, flow in, flow out.Sara Jacobovici - Toronto/1987