When I was little, maybe 4 or 5, my older sister (always the entrepreneur) decided to make a coin operated candy machine. She placed two large boxes atop one another, and through the upper box made one hole through which coins were to be inserted, and another hole through which the candy should be dispensed. The greatest challenge of course was to devise a mechanism that would process the coins and expel the product. Her epiphany was to use her little brother, me, as the mechanism. So, she assembled the machine on our front porch and placed me inside. She then proudly told the neighbor kids that she had made a candy machine which was open for business.
Sadly, her business plan was foiled by the cleverness of the neighbor kids. Instead of using coins, they discovered that anything they placed through the coin slot would result in a candy being dispensed. In my defense, it was very dark inside those boxes. She responded to my accepting slugs (or anything else) by conking me on the head through the box. This ended the enterprise, as the mechanism no longer wished to participate and exited the machine.
I recount this story because over the years I have written various bits of poetry. Nothing of note and of uneven quality, but reflective of me none the less. My dad would often cite this childish rhyme that he had picked up “He’s a poet, but he don’t know it, but his feet show it… they’re Longfellows”. So, I note that the ability to string words together was not highly valued, but gratefully the bar for such ability was set remarkably low. My mom held the skill in higher regard, and would save (briefly) the school newsletters in which my efforts were reflected. As I grew older, I found that I continued to write simply as a means of self-expression – done only for myself and as a quasi-therapy. It is a quirk of my memory that I recall most of them going back to grade school.
I have always believed that these poems were mine, no matter the inspiration. This was undoubtedly true of those inspired by my own emotions in the moment, but as an adult I found myself writing numerous poems that were inspired by a woman then in my life. I gifted them to her, not realizing that they were always hers and never mine. She possessed (and possesses) a unique key to a place within me that only she can unlock and, in so doing, poems I never knew tumbled out. The Bible tells us that the two shall become one1, but it doesn’t provide a formula for undoing the process without maiming the two. It’s as though I’m still the mechanism in that childhood candy machine and if she puts anything in, she is guaranteed an outcome. It’s still dark in there, and I can’t accurately assess what comes through the slot. Too, I often find myself conked on the head by reality. Yet, I wait there hopefully until such time as God might extricate me from this box and place me in another. It is my hope that any subsequent box will possess better lighting.
1 Mark 10:8 “and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh.” NKJV
