When we began this blog on December 19, 2009, one of my goals was to reprint published poems and say “thank you” to the editors and all involved with the journals.  “Deeper Places” has found many homes, and the poem was the first post here.  It is an old poem, and I’d like to share again as written then, and then reflect upon a few thoughts now.  Thank you.

I want to live
in the deeper places

where flowers
always get to bloom
at their appointed time

and are loved as much
weathered and dormant
and covered with snow

I want to live
in the deeper places

where loss is felt
tears are cried and
night becomes a friend

and then loss
dies too
new life arrives again

Oh, I want to live
in the deeper places

Published in Time of Singing (2003); Bell’s Letters (2004);The Discerning Poet (2004); Blogging Along Tobacco Road (2009); Bell’s Letters (2009).

The Raymond Flory Explorer Award (2010).   The Eve Jeanette Blohm Award (2010).   Both awards through Bell’s Letters Poet.

I have continued to develop these thoughts over the years in poetry and prose.  New life has arrived again in many ways.  My father died when I was 29, and I was in the hospital for my 40th birthday.  Loss did not die, but rather was transformed.  I learned that new events may bring back old memories, and that love endures and grows.  My health problems young made me a better caregiver for my mother.  I was reading Luci Shaw again yesterday, and she shares about her aging in a generous way.  Her poetry and memoirs are a part of my life.

Karl’s photo of the swans on Lake Michigan is from several years ago. 

Ellen Grace Olinger