When the Words Must Be Written: Heartbeat of Africa

Creative insights can be fleeting. Pay attention. Words can sometimes call clearly to be written in the dark of the night, but may have disappeared by the morning.

I wrote one of my favorite poems because the words insisted, and I listened, and acted. It was as if my mother stood next to me, gently shaking my shoulder, telling me to awaken, like she did when I was in grade school. I sat up, and said “what?!” out loud to the darkness.

The thoughts and words continued to insist, so I got up, grabbed pen and paper, stumbled to the next room, and wrote the words exactly as they sit today in "Heartbeat of Africa." Then I went back to bed. Thank goodness I listened … and acted.

It was two weeks after I had learned that my marriage was ending. My emotions and feelings ran deep and with such intensity that it scared me. And I wrote of an experience in Africa nearly a year and a half earlier.

Heartbeat of Africa