Isms: Original views on life from rural America

April is National Poetry Month, a time to celebrate the creative written word form, its expressive ebb and flow pulling you in.

Reading poetry is great. Watching someone bring those words to life, through a spoken word presentation, is amazing.

Poetry is one of my favorite competitive speech events. Where else can you pair Beowulf with one of Jack Prelutsky’s monster poems and come up with rhythm and flow that makes sense? (If you haven’t read any of Prelutsky’s children’s books, do it now. Your kids and/or grandkids will thank you.)

In honor of all things poetry - and because my mom has been on my mind a lot lately - I’m going to share one of my favorite spoken word performances by Sarah Kay, entitled “B.”

If I should have a daughter, instead of mom, she’s going to call me Point B, because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me.

And I am going to paint the solar systems on the backs of her hands, so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say ‘Oh, I know that like the back of my hand’

And she’s going to learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up, just so it can kick you in the stomach, but getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.

There is hurt, fear that cannot be fixed by band aids or poetry so the first time she realizes that Wonder Woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she does not have to wear the cape all by herself, because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal.

Believe me, I’ve tried.

And baby, I’ll tell her, don’t keep your nose up in the air like that. I know that trick, I’ve done it a million times. You’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him.

Or else find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him, But I know she will anyway, so instead, I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rainboots nearby.

Because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix.

Ok, there’s a few heartbreaks that chocolate can’t fix, but that’s what the rainboots are for because rain will wash away everything if you let it.

I want her to look at the world through the underside of a glass bottomed boat, To look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind, Because that’s the way my mom taught me.

That there’ll be days like this, that there’s be days like this my mama said, When you open your hands to catch, and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly, And the very people you want to save are the ones standing on your cape.

When your boots will fill with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say thank you, because there’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it is sent away.

You will put the win in winsome … lose some. You will put the star in starting over and over.

And no matter how many landmines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.

And yes, on a scale from one to overtrusting, I am pretty damn naive. But I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily. But don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.

Baby, I’ll tell her, remember your mama is a worrier and your papa is a warrior. And you’re the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more. Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you’ve done something wrong, but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining, your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing.

And when they finally hand you a heartache, when they slip war and hatred under your door and offer you handouts on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.