Like my poem Enlivened Petals, this love poem personifies flowers and, in turn, compares humanity’s greatest emotion, love, to the blossoming of flowers.
Just Me
This poem expresses ideal acceptance of limitations. The word “should” in the first line refers to the fantasy land where emotions are non-existent and logic could guide the individual suddenly struck by barriers to what he could do before his crippling accident. When I wrote this, with a relatively new disability, I was expressing my empathetic frustration with people who ‘just don’t get it.’ Thus, the second and third stanzas are more realistic. The poem concludes with the idea that we with disabilities are the bosses over our disabilities and must not let them consume us.
Good Enough
This simple poem expresses the adequacy of limiting abilities. In reality though, the situation surrounding a physical disability does not always suffice. It just plain sucks! But the poem also suggests that ‘getting outside of ourselves’ helps us; helping others brings our strengths to light, where we can see our own worth most prominently.
Voices of Miracles
This poem records how I felt the first time I walked with crutches (otherwise unaided) at the age of 17. I had to listen to hear the miracles cheering me on as I ventured. There I was, so scared and focused that I drooled on the ground, but I did it. And when I reached my destination, I really did need some convincing. Good thing those miracles were there to tell me, “you did it!”
My Scooter
This short limerick emphasizes the playfulness in my attitude growing up with a physical disability and motorization. (It isn’t gone now either–I’m still goofy this way–after all the years, I still zoomed around doing figure eights even at work where I was supposed to look professional!)
We’re the Special Ones with Less
This poem offers a unique perspective on disability. It’s not always easy to see success in the midst of difficulty, but such paradoxes make performers out of all who live with hardships. Weakness in a physical disability, or any shortcoming, tends to amplify the accomplishment in whatever a person does, especially when someone without the shortcoming does the same thing.
Enlivened Petals
This poem draws a parallel between the growth of a flower and my own growth “escorted” by my psychiatrist in my late 20s. It suggests the power of human intervention in the growth of each by mixing their attributes and concludes with both achieving their needed liberation.
Shaky Smiles
This poem was written to vent my frustration about people who pretend to understand me when they don’t. To me, it means unwillingness to be patient, when I’ll repeat something a zillion times as long as my listener is respecting me enough to try again too. It really is like opening my arms to someone, and he/she turns and walks away.
Finding Freedom
This playful poem emphasizes the paradox of being surrounded by infinity outdoors, yet my dog and I sit confined (by leash laws and physical limitation). We must search to find another version of freedom.
Someone There
This poem was written for, and in loving memory of, Lena Ricks, my independent Living coach about 20 years ago. She is one of the veteran troopers who taught me to be a trooper too.