Tag: Poem About Resilience

Poem: Watercolor Dreams

An old poem about waking up from a story that was too small.

He found her with her eyes closed

Tight

Lids wrapped around

Pulled down

And dreaming

Watercolor dreams


He lived a life of comfort

Cotton

Filled his form

Like an animal stuffed

Insulated from

The courage to explore


He held her at one end

Taut

Between fingers tightly wound

Stretching like elastic

Brittle with aging codependence

Afraid to loosen his grip


She was like a Rose

Strong

Yet gentle in her making—

Giving but not taking—

So he wore her pinned

To his jacket like a prize


He pulled one petal at a time

Slowly

Scattered her around himself

Like confetti at his feet

Glimmering in sunlight

After a parade


She watched through rose colored

Eyes

Wondering at his dance

As he tapped his feet

To the rhythm of his science

Letting his heart beat out of sync


She rested a while tired by the

Miles

Traveled in footsteps and

In smiles broadly sewn

To the walls of her soul

Like threads of a tapestry


He named his rationality

Reason—

Suddenly like a thief

Holding a bag of gold

Heavy with secrets untold and

With her time and observations


She cut the rope between her

Heart

And the anchor he threw

Watched it sink

Until she could see it

No more, now


There at the bottom of the

Ocean

And her sighs

Lay the anchor and

There on the water’s edge

Sail her heartbeat and

Her watercolor dreams.


© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

Poem: Stillness

I stood beside the ocean once

And dared the waves to drown my breath

Toes nestled below the sand

Sinking further with the tide

I did not move

But the world moved around me.


The swells and crashes

Just beyond my reach

Roared against the sky in a game

I could not understand

And did not dare to join

But the world spun around me.


Nearly invisible spheres of water

Jumped from the fray

To cover my face one lick at a time

Until drenched my eyes and hair

Pulled me closer to the earth

But the world danced around me.


Foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog

Salt-filled gifts from places

Dark and rolling with darker tones

Stumbled toward my knees

And buckled me into the shore

But the world pushed around me.


Without becoming any more fierce

And not with a call to war or anger

The ocean pushed closer

Like a drowning man clawing toward

The horizon and I waited

But the world melted around me.


It meant me no harm

I was a stranger to the swells

And standing small before the darkness

I asked, “Why haven’t you heard me?”

The ocean smiled and I stood still

But the world leapt around me.


I fought a war inside my mind

And all the soldiers writhed in sweat

The battles long with rising smoke

Unseen and big but small

I sat instead of dying, marveling at the moon

And the world breathed around me.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025