Skip to main content

Ode to Me - Analysis

Ode to Me

I received a few emails voicing  concerns about the last line of my poem ... spread my wings and die


Lets have look at the date, it is the year 2008,  as it is important to understand my frame of mind when I wrote this poem.

In this Ode to Me, I begin by acknowledging that I am a strong woman and a free spirit. And then I continue to realize that I am about to, need to, change... 'spreading my wings and fly'

After the first year of mourning my husbands passing it was time to leave the 'old' me behind, leaving behind the boundaries of a relationship and spread my winds...to die, which is really more of a metaphor.


In order to spread my wings I need to leave something/someone behind and that in itself is a death. There is a lyric of a German song that just came to mind: Good bye is a little bit like dying...
And there were a lot of Good Byes in 2007/2008 for me.


The passing of my husband of 25 years, scattering his ashes, the selling of my house and everything in it, leaving South Africa, my sons and my dogs behind, even if only for a short period and then  later leaving the country of my birth for good in order to return to South Africa again.


All those 'letting goes' were little deaths. But at the end I emerged, a new me, a stronger me, a me that had found herself.

It is my hope that if you feel like dying right now, that this poem and my explaination above, gives you the hope and courage to continue, to let go and in the end resurrect like the Phoenix out of the Ashes!



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Freewriting

Visit wikihow on how to Freewrite at the following link: http://www.wikihow.com/Freewrite I was introduced to Freewriting during workshops I attended and found it to be a valuable tool in opening up to write. Usually I have a vague topic in mind  which I write on top of the page and then I start writing, nothing planned, nothing organized, just allowing the words to flow. Quite often I find I drift away from my chosen topic and that is fine as well as it shows me there is another story lingering in my subconscious mind wanting to come out and be written Freewriting is an exercise to help to get your muse flowing.  Write - do NOT stop until your timer goes off. Do NOT lift your pen from the paper, even if this means writing, "I don't know what to write," over and over again. Write nonsense, write anything, but don't stop writing . Look back over what you've written and see if anything sparks your interest. If so, use it as a point of departure for anoth...

So very blessed!

For years I bemoaned the fact that I was not given the gift of a daughter. Don't get me wrong, I love both my sons and would not trade them for anything in the world! But I guess like every man wishes for a son I wished for a daughter. Someone I could pass my knowledge, everything I inherited from my mom, the good and the not so good... I love cooking, baking, decorating, frills and laces, the colour pink, dancing in the rain, listening to the thunderstorm, be mad and silly and everything that makes a woman... yet it was not to be. Today, whilst cleaning my studio,  I had  an epiphany, a light bulb went on... During my years of teaching I had so many daughters, sisters, mothers attending my classes. I had my sons girlfriends, and other beautiful young girls who grew up to be such beautiful young women, and all of them hold very special places in my heart! Every one was so very special and the one or other might even continue spreading a little part of me! What more can ...