Learning To Love Maria Gillan
Maria Gillan
Coffee Spoons
“I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.” TS Eliot
I have measured out my life in big gulps
as though I were drinking
a particularly delicious ice cream soda.
I hate half measures.
Yet, for so many years I was afraid of everything,
to take a chance, take a leap,
afraid to be in the forefront,
But as I have grown older,
I’ve cast aside my old fears,
cast aside the need to be careful, to take small steps,
the fear to be visible.
I want to swallow life whole
and I don’t want to count the cost.
Now in my eighth decade,
I realize I might not have that many days left
and I want to savor everyone of them,
taste the sweetness in my mouth,
ignore my legs which have to learn how to move again,
ignore my aching shoulders,
my creaking knees,
and imagine myself again,
doing the things I love,
leading a poetry workshop
or hosting a reading myself,
my own poems until the room fills with words
that are so beautiful,
so true.
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I Would Like To
I would like to learn
to judge people correctly.
I would like not to believe
all the words they say,
to understand when someone
is not a friend
even though they say they are.
I want to keep believing
that most people are kind
and generous and compassionate,
but in my 82nd year,
I have grown wary,
having been wounded one time too many.
But there was something so freeing about the quickness
with which I would open my arms and let people in.
I didn’t question their feelings,
I just was glad to welcome one more person into my world,
to glow with the pleasure of their declared friendship.
Yes, I can guard my heart, but I don’t want to.
I want instead to let people into my circle
which grows larger with each day I live.
Even if it means some of these friendships are false,
always, some will be true.
Learning How to Love Maria Gillan
Why is it so hard to love myself?
I can love others without thinking about it or questioning
whether I have permission to feel such warmth,
the way my heart turns toward them,
the way a sunflower opens to drink
in the sun. No judgment there.
Maria Gillan, why do you find it so hard
to be kind to yourself?
Why do you become a hard, unforgiving knot
when you look at yourself?
Why do you only see
what is flawed or broken or ugly?
Take the love you feel for others
and take one small piece for yourself.
Maria Gillan, be tender in your touching; you deserve it too.
Imagine, you are that flower—dahlia, tulip, crocus,
that the sun is blessing.
Don’t you deserve the joy
of warm comforting hands on your skin?
