The following prose poem is a free-write based on two inspirations: Dana’ Guthrie Martin’s echolalia post, and Michelle Obama’s campaign speech today in Ohio. I was listening to Michelle’s inspiring speech on CNN today while folding clothes. As she began a number of sentences with “we feel it when,” I thought of echolalia, and the conversation on Read Write Poem.
We Feel It
“It’s causing us to be in survival mode.”
From Michelle Obama’s campaign speech, Friday, October 24, 2008, as she referred to the global economy.
We feel it when we say goodbye to a son who is traveling far away, or when the line is disconnected while talking to a friend.
We feel it when a door won’t unlock, no matter how much we jiggle the knob, when our dreams turn to ash, when art turns to dust, when someone laughs at our efforts to reach into the airwaves to pluck a thread of inspiration from the ether. When we hear angels tapping their lotus petal feet on a distant island; when we hear the bellows of beasts in the dank basement of our soul.
We feel it when we deny ourselves the right to enter glowing orbs of goodness or empty cupboards of despair.
We feel it when we are told our time is past, we are creaking bones and gray hair with a one-way ticket to a walkabout leading to an incinerator.
We feel it when a man is unjustly accused, when lies do go on forever.
We feel it when the horizon’s flat line becomes the universe, supported on the backs of the emperor’s sycophants, who will forever love the new clothes.
Balanced On the Edge 
This is great. I especially like the “one way ticket to a walkabout leading to an incinerator” and the “horizon’s flat line becomes the universe.” But there are so many good images here! Good job!
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The final line of this is superb. Very well done.
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Christine, I love “empty cupboards of despair”.
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i did not hear michelle obama speak,, but i hear you loud and clear,, and can identify the exact moment that you describe… this was awesome…..
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I love this. (Tried to read it last night, but was too tired, so had to return today.) You are really going from strength to strength.
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I especially love these lines:
We feel it when we are told our time is past, we are creaking bones and gray hair with a one-way ticket to a walkabout leading to an incinerator.
Of course, the incinerator makes me think of the Jewish Holocaust. The gray hair and the walkabout on the way to the incinerator make me think of our local nursing homes. Both images break my heart.
The entire poem is very powerful, Christine. I love it. Paisley is right…it’s definitely your voice.
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Michelle spoke in our little town of Las Vegas NM yesterday. Thousands filled the little town square.
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Nice, Christine. I admire Michelle Obama greatly. I love how you took a thread from her speech and made something new.
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Thanks, yb. She is a wonderful woman, and a great orator in her own right. I think I’m going to work on this free-write, give it some shape, some more specifics, turn it into something worthy of her speech.
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