What I Am

What I Am

 

When people ask if I’m a writer

I say, “No, but I love to write.”

To put my feelings down on paper,

Release them from my heart,

Give them honor,

Offer them to the world.

 

I’m not sure what it means to be a healer,

But I’ve always been able to quiet a crying baby,

Or find the right words to offer comfort.

I have held the hand of a friend during chemo,

Smiled into the eyes of strangers,

Given my last two dollars to a homeless man,

And I hope, in these small ways,

I am healing this planet.

 

I’ve never thought of myself as religious,

But when I am sitting on the banks of a river,

Standing in a cathedral of trees,

Or looking into the stars at night;

When I love without walls,

So deeply that we become one person

Without beginning or end,

In these times I feel God by my side,

And I think,

“This is what religion is to me.”

 

There are so many things that I am not,

So many things I never will be,

But it’s what I am that defines me,

And to me, that’s what really matters.

 

 

Rishell Graves

April 22, 2010

Before You

Before You



Before you

I traveled roads unknown

just to see where they would lead.

There was no plan,

only a search for happiness.



Rivers, mountains, or city streets

the call was the same.

And each journey left me

longing for more.



Before you

I could not name

what was missing from my life.

How could I miss something

I had never known?



There was a joy in my freedom,

but also a sadness.

A comfort in the arms of others

that always ended with emptiness.



But now I know

what I had been missing.

I understand why I felt so incomplete.

And each road I travel

leads me back home to you.





-Rishell Graves

January 3, 2012

Eyes of Blue

Eyes of Blue

Last year

We sat at this same table

On a day much like today,

Drinking coffee

In the late spring sunshine.

You read to me

The poems of a lonely man,

And somewhere in those words

I found a piece of myself.

That day I was lost

In the blue of your eyes,

The sound of your voice,

The gentleness of your smile.

And when I surfaced I knew

To look for a man

With a tender heart,

To find the one with a smile

That matched my own,

And eyes of blue that would see me

For all that I am,

And love me

For what I can still become.

-Rishell Graves

Fall 2011

Grandmother's Tree

Grandmother’s Tree

As a child

I would sit beneath

My Grandmother’s Christmas tree,

Watching the bubbles rise

In lights shaped like candles,

The pink liquid percolating within.

Those lights took center stage

To shiny bulbs,

Tinsel,

Even the presents underneath.

Some years the branches

Were flocked with fake snow,

Which hid the green boughs,

But still let the smell of the forest

Fill the room.

My cousins would wrestle

On the living room floor,

In front of the big wood stove.

But I would sit alone,

Beneath the glow of that tree,

And dream the dreams of a young girl

Who still believed in magic.

-Rishell Graves

December, 2011

Rishell Graves sings How Can I Tell You

Berry Picking

I was teaching my grand-daughter how to pick blackberries:
“If they don’t pull off easily, leave them. They are not ripe enough.”
“If you grab ahold of a green berry you can pull the branch down so you can reach it.”
“If we lay a board against the vines we can get to the ones further back.”

All of the berry picking wisdom I had learned as a child was now being passed on.

I leaned a ladder against the fence so that we could reach the highest fruit,
And as I started to climb she said,
“You better let me, Grandma. If I fall it will just hurt.
But if you fall, you might break something.”

I learned lessons too that day:
That children see us with eyes much different than our own,
That love outweighs fear,
And those berries closest to the sky,
Picked by the hands of a precious young girl
Are the sweetest of all.

-Rishell Graves
August 25, 2011

Pebble Beach

Sitting on the shore of Pebble Beach,
I am trying to hold on to this moment.

If I were a painter I would create images of the trees:
Dark green firs, lighter green maples and oaks,
And paler yet, the shimmering cottonwoods.
I would mix paints together for the water-
Blues, greens and gray.

Wind Mountain in the East,
I would draw as a dome,
Then cover it with green and brown,
With a touch or red here and there.

There would be a splash of magenta to my left,
For the wild sweet peas that reach toward the water,
And a triangle of white in the distance,
That of a passing sailboat.

But the tool I carry is a pencil.
So I write with words,
To create a picture I can relive another day,
And bring me back here,
To the shore of Pebble Beach.

-Rishell Graves
August 26, 2011