Thoughts on a Monday

EDITED: I'm participating in Kim Klassen's Beyond Layers class, and shortly after posting the words below this morning, I checked our Monday lesson. Our assignment was to post an image that is symbolic of "brave". I gotta say, when I read the lesson I felt like my "lonely post" was perfect for the exercise. Honestly, I hesitated a lot this morning before posting about my lonely day. As a very private person, it's hard for me to show my flaws...it makes me feel vulnerable and that's a feeling I tend to avoid. When I was typing up my words, I didn't know if I'd have the courage to hit the post button and let others see that I have days where I don't feel 100%. I felt a bit queasy, about sharing both my post and my poetry (which always reveals my most vulnerable thoughts). But I'm glad I was brave - it's not much, but for this introvert it's quite a lot. And my image, to me, is very symbolic of that part of me that doesn't always have it together...that part of me that sometimes struggles.

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I'm a very solitary person, and 95% of the time I'm completely content and happy with my alone time. But every once in awhile, I wake up on a gray morning and my "solitary" turns to "lonely". Has that ever happened to you? I'm having one of those days today and, yep, it's a dreary and cold day outside (the two seem to be connected). Being a loner works well for me creatively, and I do think this is exactly how God wanted me to be. But sometimes I spend too much time alone, and that's when I get an internal mood reminder to get out there and reconnect. Message received, universe...and meanwhile, I have to say that I'm so grateful for my online friends and readers of my blog. Your "company" is deeply appreciated each day! The photo is one I took of a statue in Warrenton, VA, and fits my mood today. I love statues...there's something so incredibly beautiful, yet sad, about them. It's as if they've been frozen in time, while life carries on all around them. And that's sometimes how loneliness feels, don't you think?



STONE

In quiet contemplation
A statue stands frozen
A human facade
In endless repose
An eternal monument
Beside a garden, as
The sweet cadence of rain
Fluid and fleeting
Pours down on her

And the statue yearns
While life breathes on
Around her:
Ruffling invisibly across
Perched and feathered wings
In a solitary gust
Quivering on a silent deer
Fearful and delicate, so
Shy in the woods
Tumbling wet across
The blue-gray stones
Of a river

And the statue aches
As her loneliness
Stirs the air
Thirsting to dip her hand
In those cool waters
For just one taste
But her cold, hard fingers
Are set in stone and
She's forever alone
Stuck inside her head
As the river rises and foams
The clouds' curtains spread
And the sunset casts kindly
On her eyes.

© Sherri Brannon