Seeing Through the Disconnect

How dissimilarly we are wired.
How varied, the ways we’re inspired.
We think as we do,
Due to all we’ve been through,
For we’re products of what has transpired.
© Marie Elena Good 2024

How dissimilarly we are wired.
How varied, the ways we’re inspired.
We think as we do,
Due to all we’ve been through,
For we’re products of what has transpired.
© Marie Elena Good 2024

Toledo Main
This grand dame has stood tall since 1937, all while stooping to serve our region “of makers, dreamers, and doers.” She seems the heartbeat of downtown, freely welcoming all who want to peruse the volumes of knowledge and wonder she houses. I believe anything you want to learn about our own region, and branching out into the far reaches of the known universe, may be found within her walls. You may ask what would make us want to look through her books, what with the world at our fingertips in such a literal sense via the phone in our hand. It’s hard to imagine that some may have never fingered through paper pages filled with words that others over generations have fingered and read as well. In a library, history is not found in the pages of history books alone, but in the pages of every book on every shelf .. each page silently chronicling the very fingerprints of those who have been there before us. How many lives have touched the book we now hold in our hand? How many have absorbed and come to an understanding quite like our own? Or perhaps nothing like our own? How many people like us, or immeasurably different, have we made eye contact with as we skim the world-wide web? How many have we smiled at, and potentially rescued their day … or they, ours?
Gather the volumes
and let volumes speak of you.
Be read. Read others.
© Marie Elena Good, 2023

PHOTO BY KEITH R. GOOD
She fights to connect.
Even her thoughts are wordless,
she says. And I nod
as if I can grasp
telepathically , and
put music to it –
noting nuances
in tune with fluent fretting –
non-verbal vetting
of elusive words
she only needs for we who
don’t speak her spirit.
© Marie Elena Good

A people-person and poet,
she learned to write
in a language not her own.
Alone, and on a small Danish island,
she yearned to connect.
To greet poetic kin.
In time, she braved the barriers
of language and space,
embraced globe and all therein.
Within her lay a yearning.
A burning desire to know You.
To believe in Your existence.
But the distance seemed too far,
and far-flung stars, more personal
than the God who hung them.
How often did she ask to unmask
the key to faith in a God who hears.
Loves. Draws. Speaks.
Yet I believe. I believe You
who knew her heart from the start
ran to greet her.
“Mit barn! My child!”
I believe she recognized You at once,
whispered tenderly, “Min far. My Father.”
Never again will language be labored,
and never again faith
a far-flung star.
© Marie Elena Good, 2017
Sadly, our Poetic Asides family lost our Danish friend, Andrea Heiberg. She died of cancer Monday. Andrea never let language get in the way of relationship, clear across the globe. Her presence will be missed by so very many.
Next Stop: Sejer Island.
By Andrea Heiberg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12381964-next-stop