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by Bettina Poet Gold Wilkerson (Author)
On a sunny spring morning, I received an email invitation to create and recite an original poem for the graduating class of a local community college - Dutchess Community College 58th Commencement, often referred to as the Ivy league of community colleges, nestled in the Mid-Hudson Valley.
As I nervously deliberated what I wanted to say, I thought about all the lessons that had been poured into me not in words but through the actions and behaviors I watched of others, the experiences, the movement, the nuances, responses to life - the living, the breathing, the surviving, the dying.
What would I want graduates to part with to take into the world on their next enduring journey?
I believe the words we write as poets do not exist to simply make us feel better, they exist to allow us to serve better. To serve the soul, to serve the heart, perhaps to uplift and plant a seed of change in those who may be unknowingly looking for us to look-out for them as we arrive at a point to receive each other, in a way that deeply matters, fearlessly vulnerable.
Be the Poem was penned with flowing tears of joy and trauma, truly I cried in the process and in a short period, beyond the walls of academia, it took on a life of its own and I realized I was simply the vessel it came through.
So, with an open heart, I invite you to be present with me in reflection, as I share some of my most intimate stories and poems about possibilities, inner-standing, joy, fear, and gratitude. How do we transform our fears into joy? How can we be human in a significant way, connecting with others, even as we learn to belong in a space of adversity.
"Be the Poem" is my poetic lived experience. It is a love note to all of you, humanity, holding the hope to breakthrough the noise that holds us back, an inspiration to live beyond our fears.
