You look down on me without realizing
Your strength and beauty perfectly balanced
From your perch
A perpendicular perspective
Your artist eyes watching
My plateaued trajectory
You don’t realize your wings are ready
To feel the air and lift
An arrow at the end of your line
Infinite, vertical
Do not continue to look down
My line ends in a point
Flatlined living
Look up with your artist eyes
And imagine, create
Look up with your eagle eyes
And focus, achieve
The scale has shifted
I look up at you and realize
You’re strength and beauty perfectly balanced

For the visually challenged reader, this image shows a bald eagle sitting in the bare branches of a tree. It is looking down at the camera
Hello! Hello! It’s been a while – over a month (yikes!) since I’ve last posted. I’ve been busy – and I’m excited to tell you with what – but first, I’m catching up…well, you know, catching up in my usual “late to the party” way…is there any other way? (cue eye-roll and self-deprecating facetiousness)
Three things inspired me with this poem. First, was this adorable picture from Sadje’s What do you see #73. I missed the deadline to be included in her round up, but you can read all the other wonderful submissions here. Second, was Patrick’s Pic and a Word Challenge #268 – Scale and #269 – Perpendicular. Now, I have been a long time fan of Patrick’s challenges and am actually on a streak. Being the “competitive” person that I am, I will have to go back and complete the other challenges because there are no breaks when streaking!
Third, and probably the most meaningful inspiration for this poem is my older daughter who just self-published her first book at the tender age of 12! Yes – my daughter has published her own book before I have! At an age when I was consumed with awkwardness and other growing pains, my daughter has the self-confidence, the motivation, and the perseverance to spend this past pandemic year writing a book and designing and creating the cover art. She even did all the research for how she can self-publish it.
If you can’t tell, I am very proud of her and very much in awe of her accomplishment.
You can find her book on Amazon. She joins the ranks of other esteemed writers on WP such as Mich (see her book here) and Ivor (see his books here and here) and Chris (see one of her many books here).
©️ 2021 iido
wow congrats Irma and Sophia! The cover looks alluring, the abstract engaging … may I please hire her if I ever venture there?
that pic sure is enchanting and is so well portrayed in your poem Irma … maybe Sophia could put some of your poems together in 2 books? One for running and runfessions. And the second full of poems like this 🙂
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I am happy to hire her out to you when you come and visit! We’ve talked about doing a collaboration…it may be in the works!
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ooh good one Irma, looking forward to that!
doubt I will do any further international travel … but even in my younger days if you’d given me an all expenses paid trip I doubt I would have taken it! And that was before orange …
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Well, I wouldn’t to leave paradise either!
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you get it! take care
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Oh my goodness, Irma, how unbelievably exciting. No wonder you are proud, and you should be proud of yourself for being such a good role model. I love that it is the first in the series. That’s what I call strong self-motivation. And example of something very good to come out of living through a pandemic.
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Yes, not everything about the pandemic has been bad. She is definitely very motivated and disciplined with her writing. More so than I am – she has less distractions!
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Thanks Irma for joining in with this lovely poem. Love your perspective on this image.
Congratulations to your daughter on getting her book published! It’s just amazing.
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Thank you so much, Sadje – for your comment and for including my poem in the roundup. ❤️ My heart is full!
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You’re always welcome Irma.
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That is a wonderful accomplishment for your daughter. Her book sounds very intriguing and I love that it is the first in a series. Good for her. I have no doubt that you have been an excellent role model and teacher for her.
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Thank you so much! I do like to think a little bit of me rubbed off on her. She is already working on book 2!
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U have good reasons to be proud of Sophia. Her accomplishments in writing and publishing remind me of finalists in the Science Talent Search: precocious kids doing STEM research at a level that could have been PhD-worthy back in my day.
After reading this post, I looked outside and saw pileated woodpeckers in my yard, for the first time in years. It was a welcome sign that Sophia and other precocious kids might inherit and repair a world that has not already been irretrievably trashed by the “adults” currently running it.
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Thank you so much for your kind words! I am hopeful when I see younger people being so much more involved in issues like conserving the environment.
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