Different Perspectives

 As many of you know, I’ve been writing black-out poetry since June 4, 2021.

 

What you may not know, though, is that I’ve been writing alongside a good friend. We each take the same page of text and create something new from it. Every once in awhile, we will choose some of the same words and phrases, but most of the time, our poems are completely different—not only in meaning but in style.

 

Take these poems, for example.

 

One of my poems simply states: “You are enough.” I accompany the poem with a graphic image.

 

Her poem from the same page is much more complicated and states: “Desire denied. No one to have but I lay bear a tender heart.” She uses her favorite winding bubble technique in this poem.

 

In another example, my poem simply states: “I trust God in the searching.” I use a straight-forward bubble style here.

 

Her poem from the same page, again, is more complicated: “All gathered round the bed. She was sleeping soundly. Saying prayers. God was there.” She uses the more traditional black-out poetry style on this poem, and her marker strokes are somewhat random, going from left to right and from top to bottom. When I do the traditional black-out style, my marker strokes are very deliberate, going from left to right in straight lines.  

 

Currently, I am learning to believe that I am enough without being too much, while she is recovering from a broken heart.

 

Currently, I find myself with a lot of questions about God, while she finds herself bearing witness to her best friend’s dying and the heartaches and fears that go along with death.

 

Same pages of text. Completely different poems.  

 

Same pages of text. Viewed through the eyes of two different souls.

 

We are the culmination of all of life’s experiences and what we “see” is colored by those experiences—both past and present.

 

May we be a people who remember that, truly, the same situations can be viewed in completely different ways and may we learn to listen to other people’s stories before deeming them wrong.

 

Neither my friend nor I are wrong in what we see on the page. Instead, we are uniquely ourselves and we cheer one another on.

 

May we be a people who cheer one another on…even in our differences…always in our differences…

 

Amen.