verb; noun
To bring into being / Create / Compose / Shape
As in,
my friend Donna conjures
harmony from thin air:
she hears
a melody, she summons
notes and voices sweetness
like a magician blooming
roses from her wand.
She says, “It’s nothing!”
I say, “It’s a spiritual gift!”
— and we’re both right —
For, isn’t the ability to fashion
beauty from nothing endowed
to us by the Master Artist?
As in,
Merriam Webster offers
25 definitions for the verb “make”
and that doesn’t include all the idioms:
make waves, make up your mind, make light
Something about making is essential to
our humanity
We make believe
We make amends
We make art
We make homes
We make love
We make a difference
I am trying to make
the most of the time I have left
I only know that when I bring art to life
I come alive as well.
As in,
lately I’ve been struggling
to write
I’m tired of these blase winter days
when the wind howls
and bites like a feral dog
I want to be wild like the wind —
soft, too
I want my stories to rattle you awake
and blanket the earth with snow
I want my words to swirl and linger,
to thaw an icy heart —
even mine.
As in,
my husband skitters
his hands across the keyboard and creates
a code that will animate a robot,
our toddler Adam stands at the easel, proud
he’s “writing his name” with a dry erase marker,
our son Jack sits nearby, head bent, dreaming
up new Pokemon, dazzling
the page with drawings and color,
Others bake bread and cook,
Others stitch blankets and clothes,
Others protest and revise law,
Me? I rinse dishes and soothe owies,
sing lullabies, draw baths, compose
a line in my head: Mothering is inherently creative.
As in,
at my first voice lesson,
my teacher tells me he’s heard
too many sad stories of people
who stopped singing because someone said
they didn’t like their voice,
I try to remember this, too, when I write
I became an author
because thirty years ago
someone said, “I like your voice.”
What matters more now: That I like it too.
Isn’t all art forged in courage?
Isn’t all art a window,
an offering?
How many more books or songs
have yet to be born?
Erin Strybis 