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Tuesday, February 18, 2025

M E Wilson–poems out of lockdown

by

Ira Mathur
499 days ago
20231008

IRA MATH­UR

Trinidad-born, Nor­we­gian-based free­lance writer and artist M E Wil­son has pro­duced a heart­warm­ing po­et­ry col­lec­tion, “To Be Great: Po­et­ry In­spired by Love.”

Wil­son tells this Sun­day Guardian’s Book­shelf that she has writ­ten since she was a child, and it is a cop­ing mech­a­nism, a means to “up­lift and in­spire” her­self while deal­ing with the chal­lenges thrown her way. Writ­ing be­came Wil­son’s “refuge” dur­ing the 2020 COVID lock­down while liv­ing abroad, far away from her loved ones, a lone­ly ex­pe­ri­ence that “struck an emo­tion­al chord”. Wil­son “chan­nelled” her feel­ings in­to “writ­ing more pas­sion­ate­ly than ever be­fore” dur­ing that time of iso­la­tion, draw­ing in­spi­ra­tion from her life ex­pe­ri­ences. The re­sult is a book of sim­ple vers­es, metaphors and vivid im­agery that ex­am­ine “the uni­ver­sal­i­ty of emo­tions, the en­dur­ing strength of love and its abil­i­ty to trans­form lives and re­la­tion­ships, self-dis­cov­ery, courage, and the beau­ty of em­brac­ing the con­cept of per­son­al great­ness”.

Po­em ex­tracts from M E Wil­son’s “To Be Great: Po­et­ry In­spired by Love” with full per­mis­sion from the au­thor ex­clu­sive­ly for the Sun­day Guardian.

Keep go­ing

Every­thing is so ex­cit­ing

When they are fresh, when they are new

Ig­no­rance can be blind­ing

It’s fun to make a de­but.

Your heart leads you to a dif­fer­ent place

And it all feels like a thrill

Ex­pan­sion be­comes ad­dict­ing

There are so many voids to fill.

Then a lit­tle voice sud­den­ly whis­pers,

“Who are you try­ing to fool?”

Fear sets in, as you face ob­sta­cles,

Set­backs, heart­breaks and new rules.

And with God’s grace, you’ll make it through

Equipped for new chal­lenges ahead

I’ve learned that as long as I keep go­ing

My courage be­comes my bread.

There are times when you’ll be test­ed

To prove how much you’ve learned

Af­ter fight­ing your bat­tles, you can feel proud

Of the bless­ings you have earned.

The jour­ney is nev­er easy ...

Yes, ad­ver­si­ty has in­tro­duced me to my­self

But I’ve learned, that as long as I keep go­ing

I’ll be an ex­am­ple for some­one else.

The Truth of Rum

When first we played,

We chose to be naked.

Stripped away onion skin

Clothes as we spoke.

Ex­posed, cross-legged,

Cold on bare board floors,

Told each our truths,

Hard as pol­ished stones.

Ask any ques­tion.

Any­thing at all.

Rum flavoured ab­sences,

Tales tinged with lime.

You sit face to face,

 Show the bones be­neath

Al­co­hol slack­en­ing,

Tongues to un­tie.

 Black­out white­wash,

Is the dawn’s ex­cuse.

Whis­per you for­got

Or don’t re­mem­ber.

What was said,

By friends,

That you dis­mem­bered

Un­furled, flayed

And opened up by truth.

The last time we played,

We chose to stay clothed.

Ex­posed all our se­crets,

With bot­tles all still closed.

Bloom

At first, a thick­ened disk of dirt,

Smiled its sur­face from the pot.

But be­neath,

A seed in its

un­chal­lenged sleep

wait­ed for trick­les of knowl­edge to rain.

Then it came.

It poured,

As you ab­sorbed.

Stretch­ing new roots,

You soaked up the dew,

drank from the storm and show­er.

Pulled with a thirst

through per­co­lat­ing dirt,

to nour­ish

and feed, the seed, be­neath.

You swam and you bathed in these days of the rains,

In the fla­vors of sun­light and yel­low-taste rays.

You knit­ted new flesh made for the tak­ing.

Ab­sorb­ing and quench­ing.

Hear­ing, lis­ten­ing,

chal­leng­ing, chang­ing

and mak­ing.

‘till you thrust,

up

break­ing new ground.

Sur­fac­ing,

bloom­ing,

redo­lent,

Proud.

Your rich flower thank you,

To the rains that came down.

 

Take Flight

Why are you wait­ing for the per­fect time

To do what you’re sup­posed to do?

You cling to the arms of pre­dictabil­i­ty

You won’t dare try some­thing new.

You’ve con­vinced your­self that it’s safer

To re­main ex­act­ly where you are

You’d rather suf­fer in your ex­is­tence

--- than put in the ef­fort to get far.

There’s free­dom in tak­ing flight

And the view is fan­tas­tic, too

If you don’t act and move on in life,

then life will make its move on you.

The con­di­tions are of­ten ripe

There are lessons you’ve learned be­fore

Be­cause to­mor­row is not giv­en

Take the leap, and soar!

Let the wind blow be­neath your wings

Chal­lenge your­self to reach new heights

Get out of your com­fort zone and be­gin

Spread your wings, and take flight.

Wil­son wants to con­tin­ue to “push bound­aries, ex­plore new themes and styles, and reach peo­ple” with her words and aes­thet­ics, with the hope that her work will serve as a guid­ing light for those “seek­ing so­lace and in­spi­ra­tion”.

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian colum­nist and the win­ner of the non-fic­tion OCM Bo­cas Prize for Lit­er­a­ture 2023. (www.iras­room.org) Email iras­room@gmail.com


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