Thinking about years past, and Christmases past, and my lovely, intelligent, very independent niece, Breaz.....
Here's a poem that was generated during a Cecilia Woloch Workshop, held at her dear friend Eve's, just a few years ago.
(I've attended a couple of other Workshops that Cecilia has held there, and I learned a great deal there... This "What I Believe" is an exercise.
I had to pull out one word, but that's not much revision, and I feel like the poem works.)

From December, 2003, Workshop at Eve's house, with Cecilia:

What I Believe

I believe in tall women with long hair. I believe in science.
Fried green tomatoes for lunch.
I believe in my father’s smoky voice, I hear it at night, when I’m alone.
My fiance’ is away; he’s on a plane, and I believe he’ll still curse at me when he returns. He’ll tell me this is all foolish, that there is no point to this, but I believe poetry is the only point. It’s the bubbles in the pot, boiling, roiling…
I believe in my niece’s laughter; I remember how at 11, I saw her pirouetting—she was pirouetting to Eminem---and I thought, ”This is perfection. This is beauty.”
I believe in friends I’ve known for 20-plus years; I believe in God, for the first time in nearly 20 years….
I believe in physics, in Richard Feynman, and wish I’d been able to go to strip clubs with him, and hear this physicist play his bongo drums.
I believe Shakespeare’s sonnets are aphrodisiacs, and so are fresh figs.
I believe love would be a lot easier, if only heterosexual men were gay.
I believe no matter what I write, or what you think you understand me to say, there’ll still be a huge space between us. I believe that doesn’t matter. At all.
I believe that communion we all look for---at church, at the theatre, it’s here, for the taking---this communion with each other….
I believe my fiance’ understands. Sometimes.
Other times, I’m alone. That saying, “Being alone is not the same as being lonely” is true.
I love walking in museums alone. That’s where I went, what I did. When everyone else went to their houses of worship, I prayed there---after 9/11, I saw more art, went to more plays, read more poetry, wrote more poetry….
I believe in all those female singers—in the 1970’s, they called them folk singers.
I believe in Joan Baez’s “Diamonds and Rust”.
And, if you don’t know it, we can never be intimate.
I believe in only dating a man who has at least one sister; I believe in dating women who are confident, literate, beautiful. I think there are very few men who are all of that.
There are many animals I believe should be pets. Pigs, because they’re smart—they have the mentality of a three-year-old child. A rabbit—just because they’re cute.
I believe I need to live to be 100, or so, because I have a lot of things I still want to do.



A post-script to this:
I began to enjoy, and cultivated quite an interest in Eminem, due to Breaz's "ballet" while listening to his music.

And the bongo drums mentioned in the "What I Believe" poem?
Well, I'm wanting a set of bongoes. And lessons. I just signed up at Live Journal last night, and asked for help in learning to play them.Anyone out there who can give me instruction?

REMEMBER:
Poetry At Tech tomorrow, 4:00 P.M. for a great seat, Collin Kelley, Katie Chaple, Jon Goode.
Clary Theatre, on-campus at Georgia Tech!!!!!See ya'll there!!
http://www.collinkelley.blogspot.com