Amanda’s Poetry

Remember We Do Everything Imperfectly

/ Amanda Cook / Leave a comment

I was thinking about my issues with perfectionism today. I sometimes set an impossible standard for myself and then have to reevaluate what is feasible to do. I also have to often remind myself that we are all imperfect and that that is not only okay but wonderful that this imperfection gives us opportunities to grow, continue to improve, and to support those we love. Here is one of my poems where I played with this idea.

What We Are Is Enough

When we love, we love imperfect people,

Because they are the people available to love

When we help, we reach with imperfect hands

Because they are what we have to reach with

When we receive we take in the pain and joy of the world with an imperfect heart

Because it is the heart we are blessed to have.

By: Amanda Cook

Have a blessedly, lovely, imperfect day!

What helps give you a new perspective on life when you need it?

/ Amanda Cook / Leave a comment

Whenever I am overwhelmed by my daily challenges, I can look at pictures of our solar system, nebulas, and galaxies for a reminder of how vast the mysteries of the universe are and how I need to keep things in perspective. 

I also use poetry to think about the seen and unseen world and let my imagination flow. In addition to thinking about the size of the universe, I remember when I was in high school learning about the universe within each of us – tiny organisms that we cannot see without a powerful microscope. To those organisms we are the solar system, nebula or galaxy!

Years after the biology class, I wrote the following:

The Storm

What if, inside the eye of a needle, whole worlds existed?

People in little steel towns with silver soil that could not be cultivated

reaching for strands from the giant worm that periodically blacks out their sky.

What if, inside the binding of a book, a community lived?

People hunting dust mites for food and living in musty darkness, attributing the

movement of the book to an earthquake, living out their lives in the smell of ancient stories.

How would your perceptions change?

Creatures, scientists say, live on people’s eyelashes, and 

when we cry they experience a salty storm.  

They harm no one, and go on with life, content that what they see isn’t what they get,

not knowing the massive giant they rest upon, not knowing what the storms mean.

By: Amanda Cook

Always, I am humbled and amazed at the vastness of the universe and all the life that is around me that I cannot see. No matter what is bothering me today, I need to remember that there is beauty all around us.  

What are the pros and cons of daydreaming?

/ Amanda Cook / Leave a comment

Daydreaming leads to creative thoughts and great new ideas. I have to admit though that as a child my mind might have wandered a bit too much some days in class. One day in a creative writing class in college I was daydreaming about my daydreaming and began to write this poem. Could the child or children in your life identify with it? Can you?

The Test

“Begin Here.”  She said

   as I looked down to where she was pointing

   on the standardized test in front of me.

Begin Here

   The words echoed in my ear as my mind wandered off to a fair at midnight

   where I would meet up with my friends and then–

“Begin Here.”  She said, this time more sternly.

   while she waved her hands in front of my face

   as I slowly came back to the room and began

filling in the dots with circular black marks.

(But the truth is I am always running off the page)

By: Amanda Cook