#stringmania

[alexandracsteffan]

WHEN LIFE THROWS YOU INTO PLACES 11 TIMES MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN YOU EVER THOUGHT YOU COULD HANDLE

Afterwards, the comedown comes hard.

But what you can do then is catch yourself with gentle hands.

Wrap your heart in blankets just as colourful and intricately woven, warm and achingly, bone-shakingly

close to home as THIS love;

as all the wonder you perceived; as the joy that danced inside your belly every night for one whole week.

Yes, you can do this, Darling, here you may feel at peace - Because it is in fact okay

to sometimes let mere memories be both the air you breathe and the well you drink from in your dust-storm desert day;

if only for a little while - if only until you realise that beauty does not cease once she has fully blossomed.

See: her fallen petals, glowing still and blowing lightly in the wind, mark a path for you to walk on.

Sweetly her scent lingers and like a whisper tells of seeds, of fruits abundant: of all the vibrant growth and glory yet to come.

❤️

[alexandracsteffan]

My poem "First Camp" in a real frame on a real wall!! I cried when I received this photo a couple of days ago. I wrote and recited this poem in 2016 at Sunshine Fiddle Camp in Queensland. Later in the year, I recited it again and drew it on a piece of cardboard stolen from the kitchen at Stringmania! trad music camp in Victoria, to be donated to an auction raising funds for scholarships. The generous woman who purchased it took it to Fife, Scotland, and look at it now! So profesh. Does this make me a real poet?