One of the joys of my life is to have found the Writer's Almanac. It's
an American Public Broadcasting production and usually presented by the
incomparable Mr Garrison Keillor. There are lots of snippets of interesting
literary history and a poem for every day.
You can subscribe to the Almanac.
If you do, every day at about 2 o'clock Perth time, a little gem will
drop into your in box.
It's a bit like opening the Bible at random...most days the poetry
is...poetry...the finest expression of human experience and emotion that there
is.
But every now and then, a poem appears and you feel as convicted by it
and connected to it as if the Holy Spirit had come and anointed your head with
tongues of fire...a word from the Lord...the message is for you!!
On the 7th August, after 3 days of training
facilitators of The Big Plan (a large group, person centred planning process)
this gem by Stuart Dischell was delivered by the miracle that is the world wide
web…
Plans
She plans to be a
writer one day and live in the City of Paris,
Where she will
describe the sun as it rises over Buttes-Chaumont.
"Today the dawn
began in small pieces, sharp wedges of light
Broke through the
clouds." She plans to write better than this
And is critic enough
to know "sharp wedges" sound like cheese.
She plans to live
alone in a place that has a terrace
Where she will drink
strong coffee at a round white table.
Her terrace will be
her cafe and she will be recognized
By the blue-smocked
workers of the neighborhood, the concierges,
The locals at the comptoir of the tabac down the
block,
And the girl under the
green cross of the apothecary shop.
She plans to love her
apartment where she will keep
Just one flower in a
blue vase. She already loves the word apart-
Ment, whose halves
please her when she sees them breaking
The line in her
journal. She plans to learn the roots
Of French and English
words and will search them out
As if she were hunting
skulls in the catacombs.
On her walls she'll
hang a timetable of the great events
Of Western History.
She will read the same twenty books
As Chaucer. Every
morning she will make up stories....
She looks around her
Brighton room, at the walls,
The ceiling, the round
knob of the rectangular door.
She listens to the
voices of the neighbor's children.
A toilet flushes, then
the tamp of cigarette on steel,
The flint flash of her
roommate's boyfriend's lighter.
When she leaves she
plans to leave alone, and every
Article she will
carry, each shoe, will be important.
Like an architect she
will plan this life, as once
The fortune in a
cookie told her: Picture what you wish
To become, if you wish to become that
picture.
"Plans" by Stuart Dischell, from Good Hope Road. ©
Viking, 1993. Reprinted with permission.
The power of a
dream.
Create a
picture of a compelling future and feel yourself irresistibly drawn towards it.
Hear it in the
sounds of the streets and the beauty of the language.
See it in the
solitary flower in the blue vase.
Taste it in the
bitter burn of strong coffee taken at that round white table.
Do it…read the books…design the chart…make up the stories…
Leave nothing
to chance…know why every part of the picture is there…every shoe…
There is
nothing formulaic here…nothing anodyne…
This is vibrant
and robust...
Whatever it
takes…
There are
people hanging out for such a dream…for such a life…
Picture what you wish to
become, if you wish to become that picture
