Spoken Free Verse: Bowl of Epiphany

As I recover from a concussion ( please visit my Go Fund Me to learn more ) I thought this week was a good time to explore the audio files I have accumulated on my phone over the year.  Often inspiration strikes when I am away from a pen and paper and I can’t type the words quick enough into a note.  Recording observations as RAW audio free verse poems are satisfying for me.  Background sounds are incorporated into the piece which, I think, adds to the impromptu performance.  Also, there is a desirable amount of light pressure to form a creative thought in one take.

The third poem I want to share with you is “Bowl of Epiphany”, recorded June 20, 2018, while walking the interurban.  An epiphany is an experience of a sudden and striking realization.  June was the month I realized it was time to stop producing radio programs and open myself up to something new.  At the time I didn’t know what that was.  In August, just two months after recording this poem the answer appeared.  Transitions are difficult. Building a new life is scary, but what the hell else are you goin’ to do? If you don’t move, you’re dead.

I recommend listening to the audio file while reading the poem.  I open Google links in Music Player for Google Drive.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=17rmbLxDv09VRKimooTiip8RAX4ci-R_4

Bowl of Epiphany

by Shannon P. Laws

I think in life it’s not just one big apple
I think it’s many apples throughout a lifetime
and the apple I’ve been munching on for eight years
I’ve reached its core

I could eat the core
put the seeds inside of me
maybe an apple tree will grow in my stomach
I don’t think it will

I’ve reached the core of it
and I’ll toss it
I’ll toss it out into a field where hopefully
time will dig it into the ground and it’ll grow a new tree there
and I’ll look for a new piece of fruit that I can eat
it doesn’t have to be an apple
maybe it will be pear,
a nectarine
a hybrid

but every fruit has its pit
has its seed
has its rind
and they all end

there’s a cycle
it’s the swirl of the universe
it’s the way our shells grow on the beach
at the bottom of the ocean

and I’ve reached the pit, I think
I believed I reached it
I’m ready for something new and I’m scared
—scared as hell

but everything moves and changes
rain falls
turns into river
turns into ocean
turns into mist
turns into the sky
it turns into a cloud
and more clouds
until it becomes rain again

everything changes
and evolves
why wouldn’t people

such an easy concept

I’m going to climb that mountain
an easy thing to say
doing it is different
I’m going to walk
across the desert, it will only take a few weeks
no its gonna take you forty years
you need to learn a lesson
you need to change
you need to grow
parts of you need to die

life is a bowl of cherries
it’s a bowl of apples
you eat them one by one

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