Since we just celebrated Valentine’s Day this past weekend, I thought it was fitting to throw in a rare love poem. I say rare because I don’t write too many poems on this topic. I have nothing against love or romance. It is just not a topic that comes as easily to me as it does to other people, seeing how many love songs and poems and rom-coms are out there.
This is a poem I wrote when I was very young, possibly in my teens, and it tells the story of two people who met as children and lived their entire lives together. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? Well…only if you really like each other. If you can’t stand each other than that could make for a long journey, ha ha. But seriously, to meet your soul mate or the love of your life at a very young age and to be able to take this voyage called life together would be amazing. Imagine the bond you would have and the memories you would share over the course of that lifetime.
This poem is very special to me for the following reason. As I mentioned, it was written when I was very young in the 1980’s, at the time when home computers were still a very new thing. Many homes had only one computer, if at all, and the monitor typically took up an entire desk or table. The equally large hard drive was usually underneath the monitor or on the floor. I started writing poems and stories very early on, and I kept my writing quiet, save for the occasional poem I would share with my parents. I had typed this poem on our family computer and stored it in a folder that I thought no one would find. Lo and behold, my older brother stumbled upon that folder one day when he was working on the computer, and he read this poem. He told me later that as he read And As We Grew, he was so moved that he sat there with tears flowing down his face as he read it over again. Isn’t that the greatest compliment; to know that someone was moved to tears by something you wrote or painted, or a song you sang? To know that someone was so touched by your work, that they carried it with them into their home, as my brother did with a printed copy of this poem… well there are no words to say how that feels.
In my third book, “Gather Seeds of Hope”, there is a poem called The Artist’s Instinct. This poem talks about the subtle or not so subtle nuances that an artist will put into their work to make it just a little bit better. This is an instinct that goes along with creativity. Have you ever been listening to music and hear a guitar rift or the tapping of cymbals in just the right place? Or the singer may alter his or her voice in such a way that it makes the line flow so perfectly that you can’t imagine the song any other way. The same thing happens when looking at a painting or any other work of art. The artist instinctively knows where to place an object, brushstroke, color, etc., so that the painting or sculpture is perfect and complete. I know that I spend way too much time analyzing a word or a verse, or even just one line of a verse, rearranging and trying new ways to phrase something so the line flows freely and coherently. This kind of tweaking and analyzing and reshuffling happens in all aspects of the creative world. The reader, listener, or viewer may not even pay attention or notice anything different, but the artist, author or musician does.
This poem was also my first foray into longer storytelling. My tag line on this blog and on my YouTube channel is “Storytelling Through Poetry” and I really am drawn to poems that tell a story that just happens to rhyme (although it doesn’t have to). So it is no surprise that I started to adapt that style with my own writing.
I really do like this poem. I like the journey these two lovers went through, and how life led them in different directions as young adults, but that they found each other again and were able to commit and build a life together and even bring new life into the world. I like hearing the awkwardness and uncertainty in the narrator’s voice as she approaches young adulthood and explores her growing feelings for her childhood friend. However, there is one thing I think I would change now, or maybe even expand on and that is the last verse. I am not going to spoil it here, so I will save my comments for after the poem. I hope you enjoy the journey.
And As We Grew
When I was just a little girl
With shining eyes of blue,
I looked upon the house next door
And somehow I just knew.
For in that house there was a boy
With dusty eyes of gray
Who made my heart dance in my throat
When he would glance my way.
But little boys don’t waste their time
On girls and sweet romance.
Quite opposite, they’ll run from them
If given half a chance.
But in this boy next door I sensed
A warm sincerity,
As if somehow I always knew
His path would lead to me.
And through the years as we both grew
My heart would swell with pride
When he would enter through a room
And I’d be by his side.
And as we grew I felt the yearning
All young girls must feel
When dealing with their changing lives
And pain that is quite real.
But through the adolescent years
And early college days,
We journeyed down two different paths
And went our separate ways.
From time to time I’d think of him;
The yearning would not end.
I’d count the days until I could see
My faithful, trusted friend.
When finally that day approached
I wasn’t quite prepared
To come to terms with what I felt;
I really was quite scared.
For suddenly the boy next door
Had grown into a man
Who made my fingers turn to gel
When he would touch my hand.
And now I stand before him
In my wedding gown of white.
I see him walking toward me
And my heart sings with delight.
I say these vows with loving faith
Of what he means to me.
I put this ring upon my finger
For the world to see.
And as we grow and live our lives
Our two worlds become three.
And again a boy with dusty eyes
Has captivated me.
And as we watch him grow
I see that time is slipping fast.
We reminisce about our lives
And of days gone past.
And someday soon I know
We’ll have to let each other go
To meet again in another place
Where once again we’ll grow.
The child we raised together
Is now leading his own life.
We watched him grow from boy to man,
And now he takes a wife.
The memories roll down my cheeks
In tiny drops of tears
As I look through fading photographs
Of our younger years.
I realize, with silent pride,
As I look at my men
I’d live my life over again
If only just for them.
-K.A. Bloch-
As I mentioned, it is that last verse that does cause me to cringe a bit. The reason is, we can’t live our lives for other people. Others will come into our lives and enhance it, and we will build bonds with these people that we will hopefully take into the next lifetime, as the poem alluded to. However, our lives should have value and worth individually, and be able to stand alone as a wonderful experience with our without the enhancement of other people. As we go through life, there are certain amazing experiences that we would love to do again, just to experience all the feels one more time. And of course there will be the people with whom we want to experience those moments with again. But those people are the co-stars in our lives. We are the main character. And so we can wish to do our lives over again, and hopefully we would want to, but it has to be because we enjoy our own lives and our own company that much, not because we are living it for someone else. Remember, we are the only ones we go our entire lives with, so we’d better darn well like ourselves. I think if I could go back in time and rewrite the ending, I would be clearer about that. But then again…maybe not. That is how I felt at the time at that young age when the world seemed easier and life was simpler, so it was on par to be idealistic. Perhaps this kind of insight comes with age, and as we grow we become just a bit more jaded and cynical and lose some of that childhood innocence.
