Dear Lucas:

This is my input reading your poems:

Poem #1, The Graveyard of Stars

I like the images of turquoise sea, glimmer of light, night sky, icy and cold, snowy winter day. The thought of  a starry sky being a graveyard, an eternal graveyard, that is original, never heard or read that before. Your poem brings a memory to me, that of looking up to the starry sky and praying to one of them, praying for safety. I picked one star one night, another on another night. But not a single star made my wish come true. In a way, those stars were more like a graveyard for me, thinking back, after reading your poem, than the “when you wish upon a star” theme of Disneyland that oh, how I wished they would be.

Poem #2, The Door to Dreams

Beautiful is my first thought as I read your first two lines. It is very meaningful to me (reading the second part). It reminds me of a post I just made on the website, a little while ago. I wrote there, even if we believe that we deserve to suffer (for being “selfish and vain”, you wrote), we still don’t want to suffer. We keep wanting, needing to feel good, to open that “door to dreams”- beautifully stated, to my ears and eyes. “This wall is not a wall at all. It is me.. and all”- excellent, says I, excellent indeed.

And it gets better: “Since all that exists will fall”- true, so very true.

“the scream of my tethered spirit is heard in vain”- brings me back to your first poem, praying for the stars. Those prayers, however mute, were the screams of my tethered soul (soul not literally, for me), unheard, or maybe my screams were lost in all the other screams, screams of the children unheard.

I know that fright, I know that shame, a great shame. I know lonely. I know these things. And so, I believe I hear you Lucas.

I hear you.

Thank you for sharing your poems, a delight to read, an experience.

anita