Your Original Face

Not good enough
echoes through dreams,
lifetime after lifetime
trying to please,
to shape your self
to another’s standard
while the one in the mirror
remains mortal, imperfect
and near buried.
In the time you have now
offer a kind word,
supporting,
encouraging
the only life
you’ve ever had
and be the one
passed down
through ages,
eroded like stone
until all that’s left
is your original face.

 

 


Navajo Velvet by RC Gorman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reading of “Your Original Face” with music by Gary Courtland-Miles


 


15 Responses to “Your Original Face”

  1. Pam says:

    Good work!

  2. Tony Palombo says:

    Very pensive and reflective, and graphically true to form, calling forth original innocence. Your strong voice over Gary’s flighty piano improv fit well together. 🙏❤️

  3. Tom Figel says:

    Don, whoever set that standard you were living up to set a high bar. I very much like the way your poem arrives at the last words, “original face”. Happy father’s day.

  4. Marco Menato says:

    I love this! And totally relate … How needed is to replace the critic with the crown’s blessing. When I don’t start by blessing the principal character in my life, it spills and pollutes elsewhere.

  5. John Connor says:

    Yes yes yes, Don.

  6. Athena Coleman says:

    Beautiful, simply beautiful.

  7. Geoff Tisch says:

    My original face has a mouth saying “Fear not”.

  8. William Comer says:

    I spent recent hours alone, taking in a celestial event that won’t repeat for 400 billion yrs!–astrologers assert.
    A perfect configuration of orbit by sun and moon. Talk about original face! My dad is visiting me from the other side today. I am content in originality of the Moment.

  9. Stan Grindstaff says:

    There is still time to face the music of the spheres…

  10. Pete Lepanto says:

    Nice!

  11. Whew! Love this all the way through…

  12. Bob Keller says:

    Wonderful Don, Thank you for sharing

  13. Powerful in its honesty…

  14. David Barnes says:

    Don — everybody loves Your Original Face — our face, her face, his face, my face, your face, one face

  15. Pat Fitzsimmons says:

    So poignant, thank you Don, going through the process you’ve described leaves me with a sense of what it means to be an elder.

Leave a Reply