Where grief meets grace: one woman's poetic journey from darkness to light.
Journey through life's peaks and valleys in "Was It a Dream?" Award-winning poet Larada Horner-Miller transforms personal struggles into universal truths in this third poetry collection. From loss and heartbreak to wonder and whimsy, these verses explore a woman's path through grief to hope. Experience profound reflections on family, nature, travel, and the resilient human spirit in this engaging installment of the Navigating Life's Journey Through Poetry series.
Where grief meets grace: one woman's poetic journey from darkness to light.
Journey through life's peaks and valleys in "Was It a Dream?" Award-winning poet Larada Horner-Miller transforms personal struggles into universal truths in this third poetry collection. From loss and heartbreak to wonder and whimsy, these verses explore a woman's path through grief to hope. Experience profound reflections on family, nature, travel, and the resilient human spirit in this engaging installment of the Navigating Life's Journey Through Poetry series.
As a poet in the late 80s and living in Raton, New Mexico after college, I only wrote two poems. I hadn't yet embraced myself as a poet and didn't see poems all around me.
But when I moved to Albuquerque in 1991 and participated in the Rio Grande Writing Project in 1992, my poetry exploded. I began seeing poetry everywhere.
I include here a poem I wrote for my second husband and read at our wedding. Sadly, we divorced.
In 1993, Jeanne Greenhouse, Eleanor Schick, and Carol Kreis, who I learned from in the Rio Grande Writing Project, honored me by asking me to join the staff as a teacher for the workshop that summer. Afterwards, I attended two advanced workshops in 1994 and 1995.
One fun-filled activity we did while attending the Writing Project was a Drive-By Poetry Reading on Central Avenue across from the University of New Mexico—a very busy intersection. We stood on the street corner in front of the Frontier Restaurant and read poetry to anyone who walked (drove) by! We shocked students, professors, everyone!
I saw poetry everywhere!
Thirty-eight years ago, I wrote this poem after my memorable adventure in Cobá, Mexico in the summer of 1985. Laying solemnly unattended on my computer, it haunted me for many years because of my surreal experience there.
After studying the genre of magical realism at Colorado State University with my Spanish literature teachers, it fascinated me—reality with a dash of magic.
So, what is magical realism:
"Within a work of magical realism, the world is still grounded in the real world, but fantastical elements are considered normal in this world. Like fairy tales, magical realism novels and short stories blur the line between fantasy and reality."
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-magical-realism#what-is-magical-realism
Look Closely—I am standing on the middle of Coba, Mexico
Cobá—I Was There!!
Written - March, 1986
Revised – July 25, 2021
The year was 1985.
Walking down an overgrown jungle path
with my friend Lynn,
an iguana crosses my trail—
toucan birds grunt and croak
above my head,
nestled in the canopy.
A turn in the footpath, thick over-growth
blocks the sun for a minute.
Shadows, sounds, smells—
transport me back to 900 A.D.
A shiver pierces my soul.
Decked in colorful dress, Mayans step out
of the past,
brush against me.
The hair on my arm stands up
with that soft touch.
I stare at crumbled ruins—crumbled times—
straining to see with my eyes their faces
and hear with my ears their voices.
The bees buzz in the tops of the trees.
Where am I?
When?
With whom?
A step back in time, yet caught in between!
Is it 1985 or 900 A.D.?
or somewhere in between?
Had I been here before?
At this spot,
centuries before,
standing at the foot of this temple,
surrounded by my fellow Mayans,
worshipping the god "Chac" and
listening to the familiar
squeaks of birds
and the laughter
of howling monkeys.
The smell of incense fills the air—the mingled
odor of honey and grain
my sacrifice to my god.
The drums beat, beat, beat a familiar
steady cadence,
draws me to it,
echoing my own heartbeat,
and calls me to it.
The priests chat, chat, chat soft sounds
that join the
bass beat of the drums.
The Mayan language a mystery to me
yet I know its deep meaning.
I sway to the beat, the chat.
It vibrates in my soul, calling me forth
through the ages,
crashes past time’s barrier!
Dark bronze skin glistens in the firelight.
Brown eyes search our faces for safety.
Flat foreheads surprise me
with their symmetry.
I marvel at the feathery head dresses
with multiple colorful gowns.
I join the celebration,
the ceremony!
Small, sturdy people crowd around me,
greet me in a soft, rhythmic tongue.
Gently, friendly—a spark shines
in their eyes with recognition!
We stand eye-to-eye!
THEY KNOW ME! I’m among my own. I'm home!!!
I rejoice in our reunion. My light skin shines
in contrast to my bronze-skin brothers
and sisters.
How can I explain our connection?
We are centuries apart,
tribes apart,
languages apart.
Yet, here I am,
at home
and satisfied
like never before.
I marvel at the ceremony,
the rhythm
the music
the smells
the community.
I have never felt more
at peace with myself
and my world.
But it can’t be!
I grew up in Colorado.
Not Mexico
Not years ago
Not Mayan
"Did you hear that? What was that?"
my friend grabs my arm.
TRANSPORTED BACK
GONE
REALITY, or is it?
I'm back. 1985.
The jungle’s summer heat presses in,
the sun's scorching heat.
Eerie sounds and hums flow
through the air.
Eerie, yet familiar.
I strain to hear it better
to hear the beat of the past,
to see those familiar eyes.
I want to return!
But can I?
Was it a Dream? Navigating Life’s Journey Through Poetry takes you on a journey through the author’s life in free verse. Articulate and eloquent, entries show readers where the author was in the 1980s and 1990s while in her late thirties and early forties. It’s an authentic, inspiring collection in which the author shares “a hodgepodge of life events.” This includes divorce, alcoholism, childlessness, and the loss of her father.
This first book begins with a solitary poem from 1986 and a trip to the Mayan ruins in Coba, Mexico. It wraps up with the author watching children play in laundromat in Spokane, Washington. Along the way the author skillfully captures a wide range of emotions including reverence, joy, expectancy, wonder, sorrow, healing, tradition, loneliness, loss, and hope. The verse is minimal and to the point. But each entry packs a wallop in a few spare sentences.
Word pictures are also painted with great care and skill. You can almost feel the warm summer desert breeze. Hear rattlesnakes buzzing in the cactus. Smell incense and burning cedar. Verses are redolent with emotion, observations, and insights.
Stand-out entries include Dad, Sails Dance, A New Mexico Breeze, Childless, and A Storyteller Forever.
Beautifully written in lyrical free verse, this evocative collection of poetry spans the first fifteen years of the author’s poetry writing and tells you why she writes. It also includes some biographical information and back story so readers have a broader context of the content.
Contemplative, expressive, and reflective, this fine collection of poetry can easily be read in an afternoon. But it’s worth at least a whole day. In fact, if the mere notion of “poetry” makes you break out in hives or want to jump up and run screaming from the room, give Was It a Dream? a chance. It’s different. It’s fresh. It’ll resonate long after the final page is turned.