“And it was at that age… Poetry arrived in search of me.”

                                                                        -Pablo Neruda

Curiosity is inherent in every child,

but for me, only the aimless and blind search for understanding.

flammable knowledge lay all around me, curiosity an unlit match.

The magic began when curiosity ignited.

A small spark for a moment,

then an explosion that burned my eyes.

I didn’t understand this new dimension of myself,

but my eyes began to adjust.

I had found wonder,

the wine of curiosity’s grapes.

Once fermented and tormented, the nectar

forgot the dangerous, locked inhibitions in my mind.

Every view now left me breathless.

Colors filled my black and white world.

My lungs were overwhelmed with every feeling I had never known.

Wonder had shoved me hard enough to leave me staggering.

No longer an outsider in the middle of everything,

I no longer looked at the night sky to see darkness and fear.

I saw the great endless swirl of possibility

come out of the universe and pull me into it.

It grew from the stars, faster every day.

It continued to engulf my mind and the world around me,

fusing the two together; erasing the boxed compartments in my mind,

and rebuilding my world.

Fall 2002