Healing through Vers Libre

Living In the Past

5/29/2023

Living in the past is not a good thing. This doesn’t mean that we pretend the past didn’t happen. It means that we don’t stop moving forward. We are living in a time where many people are trying to return to the past. This is not good as a nation and certainly not as individuals.

Living in the Past

Living in the past is a recipe for disaster.
If it is full of negatives, that same mindset
finds its way into the life you live in the present.
If it’s full of positives and you choose to live there,
it inhibits your ambition and your creativity now.

Living in the past tends to pull you like a magnet
into a world that played its part in all those lives,
a part meant to offer opportunities for rising above
the struggles designed to make you stronger.
Life is about change, and change requires overcoming.

Progress isn’t about retaliation, reprisal, or reparation.
It is about learning as individuals and nations
from our mistakes of the past so we don’t keep
creating the same circumstances in our present.
How? By not investing all our energies into the past.

As long as we live in the past, fighting for justice
for past wrongs, we don’t create balanced solutions,
solutions that will lead to peace and understanding.
Our intensity creates new imbalances with which to deal.
Focusing on the negative past will never solve anything.

Even for those whose pasts seem to be enviable,
living there denies them creativity needed to draw
from their past experiences and move forward.
Creativity increases as one learns from experiences.
Reliving past success does not lead to more success.

Progress can only be made if the gifts offered
by living are used to improve oneself and
all humankind for we’re all connected in spirit.
Emotions like anger and retribution only serve
to keep the world in continual states of imbalance.

Living in the past often leads to fear of the future
along with other negative attitudes and approaches,
which don’t bring solutions, only more problems.
The true gifts of the past are there if we open our hearts
and choose to use it to create a better future for all.

©DWilliamsen

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Living in Day-Tight Compartments

5/22/2023

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I wrote this earlier, but even now, with three years gone by, things are still the same. My husband passed on May 22, 2020. I love you, John

Living In Day-Tight Compartments

The calendar informs me another year has passed
since the oxygen levels in my life diminished.
How do I even begin to measure the years?
My mind cannot comprehend this passing of time.
Yes, I know the things to which I’ve put my hand.
I can list two novels completed, another begun.
I can recount my efforts to carve out a place for myself
in this strange, new world in which I’m forced to live.
The tears have fallen, sometimes mimicking a waterfall,
sometimes a leaky faucet, a constant, unwelcome reminder
that things have shifted. Nothing is the way it was.
How do I even begin to measure the years?
Moving forward in time is not a choice.
You do what’s expected of you, what you expect,
what you know he would expect you to do.
Yet, you know you’re not really moving forward.
You’re living life in day-tight compartments.
Each day is a new life you fill with routines and
expectations that will lead you to yet another day.
You cannot accept the passing of time, the years,
for it means the best part of your life is gone.
So many things left undone, unsaid.
How do I even begin to measure the years?
To embrace this new life with unbridled hope
may be asking more than I can give at the moment.
Learning to be alone, to accept that no one will answer
when I speak my thoughts is all I can manage now.
I will continue to live in day-tight compartments
until I can see a light at the end of this tunnel,
until I can promise myself more than one day at a time,
until the oxygen level rises again, and I can breathe.

©DWilliamsen

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What I Love About My Life

5/15/2023

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You can always find something in your life to love. If not, you’re not looking hard enough or with an open heart.

What I Love About My Life

I love the quiet moments in between the hectic moments.
I love the hectic moments because they help me appreciate the quiet moments.
I love the moments when my creative juices are flowing, and words flow easily from me.
I love the moments when I know what I need to do next.
I love the moments when I am self-remembering.
I love ALL the moments in my life because without them I wouldn't be who I am.
I love the potential that still lies within me to one day recognize who I really am.

©DWilliamsen

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Time Is Precious

5/8/2023

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Time feels different when you’re young compared to when you move along in years. Youth sees five years as a long time. Yet, when you pass the half-century mark, five years seems like the blink of an eye. This is when you fully realize how precious time is.

Time is Precious

Never let your days be all about tomorrow’s dreams,
for one day you’ll realize your past is an illusion.
Open your eyes, savor the little moments each day.
When time has passed, when your years are limited,
when a loved one is gone, the little moments
are the treasure for which you endlessly search.
Each dive taken into your memories underscores
how much you missed setting little moments aside
Finally, you realize what “time is precious” means.
It’s not about rushing to get things accomplished
or reaching the apogee of your life before it’s too late.
Time is precious because when you live your life
in the moment, you are creating a life well-lived,
a life full of moments to treasure when time is short,
a life not prepared for a prodigious biography,
but a life of living and loving every moment to its fullest.

©DWilliamsen

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Moving Forward

5/1/2023

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Negative emotions are never the fault of others. Others simply provide the opportunity for us to make choices about how we choose to respond to life.

Moving Forward

No matter our age, we will eventually find ourselves
having to deal with negative emotions in our lives.
Our work, our family, our friends can spark
such emotions, but the source of these emotions
lies within us, awaiting the choices we make.
Once we have worn ourselves out
with frustration, pessimism, and impatience,
all those negative feelings start to slowly slough off,
and a small light twinkling in the distance
offers us the courage to move forward.

©Dannye Williamsen

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Dannye Williamsen

A Diary in Verse

Pablo Picasso said, “Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.” For me, free verse is like a diary. It serves you by allowing you to release your emotions by setting pen to paper. At times, it helps you clarify your thinking on a subject. Regardless of the motivation, it is an intimate exercise. As a writer, it takes courage to share them with others. The words lay you open to the world.

Life is a purifying process. It serves as our crucible – a place where we can experience the heat of change. Life is our source for opportunities to transform ourselves. For me, writing, particularly free verse, helps me transform my feelings about difficult situations by putting them down on paper. Oftentimes with those verses serving as release valves, I can feel myself changing as soon as I place the last period on the verse.

One thing all humans have in common are emotions. Emotions exist on a complex spectrum, and the spark leading to their expression can be either intrinsic or extrinsic. It can stem from experiences in the past or those in the here and now or even those on the world stage.

I chose to share these in hopes they would resonate with others. I hope some of them can serve you on your journey, if for no other reason than to know you’re not alone in how you are feeling.

Living In the Past

Living in Day-Tight Compartments

What I Love About My Life

Time Is Precious

Moving Forward

Dannye Williamsen​A Diary in Verse

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Dannye Williamsen

A Diary in Verse