inner critic, beware

old poetry & a writer's vow

I have been a furnace blazing,

I have been a green, thundering heart,

I have been a mountain pool,

A lochan of the dead, a poison dart,

I have been the moon rising,

I have been blood-rush and thorn,

Antler and iron,

I have been green and blue and every colour of the moor,

I have been the eyes within your heart,

A forest watching, a dream worth keeping.

Now I am the keen of wind,

a shadow that has passed.

---

The sky is the colour of seal hide, mud clings perpetually to my boots, and I crave a whisper of inspiration.

I scroll the words of others but my spirit’s feathers grow damp and heavy.

I fear that I’ll never be able to translate the feelings inscribed upon my soul. Or that in truth, there’s nothing worth transcribing, and if you were to meet me you’d discover that truth, too - that I contain as much depth as a November puddle.

Then I stumbled across an old poem I’d written five years ago. A poem that sparks my blood and reminds me that I can write beautifully from the heart…just not always at 10.30 am on a dreary Thursday (the time I’m writing this letter).

It reminds me that everyone holds hidden depths in their unexpressed feelings, which are no less true for being unspoken.

Yet I’d archived this poem to a dusty recess with a wince. Not true, not true…how can I be all these things?

I would enter that young woman’s dreams if I could. I would shield her from bruising judgements and cast spells of silence over the inner critic who clipped her wings.

I would be the eyes within her heart, gentle and watchful. I would glower over self-doubt, the shadow’s get, until it turned away.

But I can only stand guard today, spells and sword at the ready.

Here is my invitation to you to do the same.