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Thursday, February 10, 2011

A Matter of the Heart

“…I feels like sangin’…”
(Shug Avery, The Color Purple)


Safe Haven

I have made room for you--
with minimal restrictions:
a safe place that you have earned,
a haven you deserve;
please, Love,
come inside.
(from, “Pillow Talk: Poems” by Camille Gray ©2010)

I love to sing as much as I love to write. My voice that sings is distinctly different from my voice which puts pen to paper. For the past few years, I have hidden behind parchment and ink, believing it to be the safer voice. The awkward and out of tune melodies of the written word can be corrected with an eraser (or the backspace key) before audience exposure. However, there is no mercy for the tune of forgotten words or notes sung out of key. To be certain, the fear of a missed note has relegated the songs in my heart to my moments alone in the shower or in my car…until now.

I am singing again from the inside out. The songs are finding their way out from behind the web that has both entangled and protected my heart; a calculated, tough yet fragile mesh spun from a variety of circumstances cultivated in the fear of being hurt and the fear failure. This complicated network of self-preservation has been swept away by the cathartic and charismatic influence of genuine care and concern…love is pushing its way past the debris of disappointment. And I am now experiencing the lyrical synergy of contentment.

Selah!


Rhythm

A bare pulse waves politely
summoning our attention to the details
of how we live and why we love.

Life;
exacting responses to the biography
we create within the time allowed
propels in and around us;
with and without us;
and we remain amazed and inspired
as we scale the timing and depths
of our life and our love.

Love;
the measure of our lives lay in an undiluted dimension;
a space where we have the only reservation.
(from, “Pillow Talk: Poems” by Camille Gray ©2010)