F I N D I N G Y O U R N O R T H S T A R is just as much about losing it. and the path you must follow to reclaim it, where with every step - an intake of breath and its release - you will find that you are moving... moving the shadows to clear the pathways, your rhythm and your focus, to push away distractions and to make way for clarity and light to fill spaces long lost and forgotten and desperate for air. When I struggle for breath, I write. and some times I try new ways of writing, playing with words. I love this part of my practice - the practice of trying new things as a means to grow out and up from the old. Here, I try my hand at poetry:

HARD TO READ
I can’t text
words knit with kisses
like knots between beads on a necklace
ellipses in texts
the clever and quickness
of words clipped
like stitches in etchings
and sketches,
the peaks and the ditches.

Words, when I find them,
and a tendency to think
are like the experiment
with invisible ink:
a page is dipped in it,
lemon drops dripped on it
for words well-hidden beyond it.

Match lit and words surface
an exchange and a purchase
Like breath to the drowning,
a direction, a purpose
the words always ground me
like signposts around me –
the lost and found me -
pointing away, way beyond boundaries.

Part Biology Part Chemistry
Straight lines from within me
the ink like a mirror placed under the stars
whose light maps the wonders, the curves, and the scars
like round-back cartographers with rusted-cap jars
full of fancy, colors and nibs
to make sea monsters and sirens
where the world ends…
and where Life begins.

If invisible words are the journey
and the page is the map
then candles and lemon drops are alchemy,
the roads, and the path
to mermaids’ lost lands, impermanence,
and joy in its patches
over oceans and boundaries, experiments and scratches.

Destiny’s not mine to control -
Destination is par for the soul
so it matters not where I am going
as long as I’m there
where bended lines have replaced all of the squares
with sunrise and sunsets and seasons and air
the mountains, the rivers, the lakes, and the shore
but only and always just Now. Never more.

@CarolannPatterson GoodGirlGoGoGo.com