I won’t know until I know.

How do you know when you know?

When do you know exactly what you want to do with the rest of your life?
Where you want to be in 5 years? Ten?
Is it just a feeling? Or like a punch in the gut?
Do you just wake up one day and know?

What if other circumstances prevent you from doing what you know?
What if the stars just don’t aline?
Or fate never steps in to save the day?
What if you missed your chance?

I don’t know when I’ll know.
One day I’ll open my eyes, or look around, and I’ll know.
When I know, I’ll fight for what I know.
The stars don’t need to aline, and fate doesn’t need to step in.

There will be second chances. And thirds, and fourths.
I hope I won’t need them, but I know I probably will.
Know what you know, when you know it.
I won’t know until I know.

It’s alright to not know right now.
Because when you know, you’ll know.

Photo Credit: http://www.wordsonimages.com/photo?id=79639-Quotes+about+the+future+

Found Haiku No. 2

Here’s a Found Haiku taken from the poem: Riches I hold in light esteem
by Emily Jane Brontë (March 1, 1841)

Love I laugh to scorn
,
Lust of Fame was but a dream
–
Vanished with the morn

If I am the rain

If I am the rain:

If I am the rain
Then you are the oil (the blood of flowers past)

I fall down in a flurry
(one
two
three)

You wait patiently
But the wind is my guide
I can’t sit (and wait –
to see you)

If I am water, dripping down
You are not in sight

Off in the sun (with another loved one)
I will never reach your light

We do not mix
We sit
(We look
and stare
and question – each other, everything)

For the blood of flowers
Is thicker than (even the snowflake
on your check)

I melt away,
Until one day – The ice
(It, breaks the heat)

And even so,
Never do we (truly) meet
(But, I am yours)

 

Ashlyn Skaar (© February 2014)

Photo Credit: http://www.sketchoholic.com/linneastrid/images/8919/the-night-and-the-rain-oil-on-plywood-30-5-x-44-cm

Storm Chaser

“Tragedy blows through your life like a tornado, uprooting everything, creating chaos. You wait for the dust to settle, and then you choose. You can live in the wreckage and pretend it’s still the mansion you remember. Or you can crawl from the rubble and slowly rebuild. Because after disaster strikes, the important thing is that you move on. But if you’re like me, you just keep chasing the storm… The problem with chasing the storm is that it wears you down, breaks your spirit. Even the experts agree, a girl needs closure.”

-Veronica Mars (Season 1, Episode 3)

I am a Storm Chaser.

I want to understand,
To know the why.

I can’t just let something go
And never be able to return to it.

Never know how it changed,
How it evolved.
How it grew.

I don’t live in the wreckage.
I live beyond the wreckage.

But I carry it with me,
The wreckage inside me.

I chase the storm
I run for the knowledge.
But I will never catch up
Never understand.

Maybe it’s better that way.

To look into the eye of the storm
To see it’s soul
To understand.

Would I get closure
Or just more questions?

Photo Credit: http://31.media.tumblr.com/a6b2502629d41ad9add2ce87c48d1446/tumblr_muwty3hCWq1qfi7g0o1_500.jpg

To Stand Where They Stood

In one of my classes we’ve been discussing the idea of ethnicity and ancestry. I am not usually a fan of this topic. I don’t know very much about my ancestry beyond their pilgrimage to America. Where were they before America?

But, recently I have had this new found desire to go. To stand where they stood. To learn about my heritage. To travel across land and sea. To understand how I fit into the puzzle of my family tree.

To Stand Where They Stood:

To stand where they stood
Be where they were
Feel what they felt

To understand

Did they have my blond hair
My father’s kindness
My brothers’ strong will

Who were they

To walk where they walked
See what they saw
Live how they lived

Go, adventure

Be with them
See with them
Live with them

They are not gone
They are not forgotten

They stand where I stand
They are where I am
They live within me

By: Ashlyn Skaar
(October 2013  ©)

Photo credit: http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2010/03/14/seven-quick-tips-for-taking-better-photos/

Mamihlapinatapai

Mamihlapinatapai (from the Yagan language) – “The wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start.”

Mamihlapinatapai:

A look. Glance.
A nod. Wordless acknowledgment.
A smile. Crooked but beautiful.

Teeth clench down on the of my inside cheek.
Butterflies swarm my brain.
Thoughts go blank.

Staring into the dark abyss of brown eyes.
Lost in this deep chasm of space and time.

Say something.
Say anything.

Glance down.
Breath in. Okay.
Look up. Oh.

Moment passed.
Should have said something sooner.

Moments like these.
They don’t occur twice.

(By: Ashlyn Skaar
September 2013 ©)

Photo credit: http://palabrasaflordepiel.com/2013/01/11/la-palabra-mas-concisa-del-mundo/

A Good Boy

This is a found poem from the movie Blood Diamond.

A Good Boy:

What are you doing?

Look at me,
look at me.

What are you doing?

You are Dia Vendy
of the Mende tribe.

You are a good boy
who loves soccer
and school.

Your mother loves you.
She waits by the fire
with your sister
and the new baby.

The cows wait for you.
And Babu, the wild dog
who minds no one but you.

I know they made you do bad things,
but you are not a bad boy.

I am your father who loves you.
And you will come home
with me
and be my son again.

By: Ashlyn Skaar
(September 2013 ©)

Photo Credit: http://wodumedia.com/blood-diamond-2006/djimon-hounsou-as-solomon-vandy-and-kagiso-kuypers-as-dia-in-warner-bros-pictures-and-virtual-studios-action-drama-blood-diamond-distributed-by-warner-bros-pictures/