I wrote this about a year ago, as a part of a self-exploration process. I'm posting it here in response to a question on Brenda's blog - What is the role of a poet in changing society.
A flame was lit in my soul by a Higher Flame, years ago when I was born. I write poetry. I use words to paint a tapestry of colours and light. Even darkness – I see in the darkness because of the flame burning inside me – it gives me vision and light. My mind clothes the thought that was born in clothes of words, and sends it out into the world, where people can see the light I saw. They can feel the emotions I felt, not because they were mine, but because these are their own feelings.
I’m an artist - amateur or not – I’m the expression of a silent society. I feel deeply everything that goes on around me. I feel for people. I feel their feelings and put them into verse so that they may feel and accept these feelings as their own.
I have been through good and bad, and my heart is scarred from bleeding and crying. But it was made sensitive by the experiences. I learnt to read into good and bad. I learnt to read people’s emotions.. I learnt to discard the mask I wore before. I learnt to look for the good in people. I learnt to look out for pitfalls in my path. I learnt that faith will be tested by a baptism of fire. I learnt that asking for help is not shameful. I learnt, most of all, to call my feelings my own.
I express for people their feelings as my own. They read the poem and tell me that they could feel my pain – but that is their own pain they finally accept. I took on the responsibility of expressing for people their own feelings unknowingly and unquestioningly, when I started writing poetry. I’m a pillar of society, where the feelings flock. My job is to make people face the realities they deny. Yes, I write my poetry as my own feelings. But I throw up questions others would not dare ask. As a close friend once told me in a conversation we had, “Questions that we dare not repeat, because our masks float away, and we are flawed and standing alone in Eden once again…”
I live in a farcical world, where appearances are superficial. They are deceptive – they are a lie – they are a mask. They are what hides the true force of feeling in the heart and soul. They are what people use conveniently to deny their feelings. Denial is a rule of survival, and feelings are for wimps. The heart is an inconvenient appendage to an otherwise fit-for-survival person. But the heart is not silent. It finds expression, maybe not in tears per se, but in other ways. Hearts reach out to hearts in silent communications of emotion. Society calls it “instinct”. I call it humanity.
I belong to this world of shifting depths, masked realities and people who have been programmed for generations that feelings are for wimps. Where the objective reality is masked for a presentable image. Where society frowns on any expression of feeling. Where society regards fear as unreal. Where we form this society. Where we stitch masks. Where we force the mask onto an innocent child, until he believes he cannot live without it.
And where I have chosen to tear the mask on Me. I have chosen to wear my heart on my sleeve so I can feel. Feel deeper, feel truer, feel closer. To myself, to my people, to my God. My courage comes from my faith and my love. For, a flame was lit in my soul by a Higher Flame, years ago when I was born….
