The Dewdrop’s first Featured Poem of 2023, is an offering from poet Emily Fernandez. “Please begin” serves as a perfect introduction to the year, because, as Emily explained to The Dewdrop, “It reflects on leaving the past behind and being mindful of the uncertainty of the future.” With Whitman-esque repetition, this poem asks readers to awaken, to breathe, and to love.
Please begin
Please begin
Please open your eyes
place your feet on cool tiles
Please walk through doorways
Please take your first sip of coffee
Please remember to look at the elm tree
Please see how many roses bloomed
and how many weeds have gone to seed.
Please remember that today is not yesterday,
that sleep is meant to divide us from the past,
and night is made to give us thought space.
Please know that clock hands neither hold
or strangle you in the present moment, but
they will scoot you along one minute to the next.
Please do not pretend to know the future, but
keep a calendar and a journal all the same;
It’s only fun to climb if you have a song to sing.
Please forget everything I just said
Please splash water on your face
Please stretch your bones
Please eat a strawberry
Please breathe deep
Please let love in
Please begin.
Emily Fernandez
Emily Fernandez is an author of the poetry chapbook, Procession of Martyrs (Finishing Line Press 2018). She was selected to be a 2020 Moving Arts MADlab playwright, and her play Cage and Lung was professionally read online in October 2020. She is an assistant professor at Pasadena City College where she teaches composition, creative writing, and poetry. She received her MA in English and American Literature from New York University. Her poems have been published in Antithesis, Black Fork Review, Pangyrus, The Dewdrop, Angel City Review, Tiny Seed Journal and others. Her forthcoming chapbook Pliny and Other Problems (Bamboo Arts Press) will be out in 2023. She enjoys open water swimming, gardening, and photography. https://emily-fernandez.weebly.com
Beautiful much appreciated share thank you 🙏
Thank you so much!
Beautiful, Emily! So full of presence and hope. I needed this one today. Thank you❤️
Such a lovely poem, though I’m coming to it late, at the beginning of spring… look! It works now, too! Thank you!