Another new member ESTHER MERRITT MANNING

Welcome to a new member of the Valley Winds chapter ESTHER MERRITT MANNING. She discovered poetry early in her high school days when asked to do a collage in English Class telling about herself. Not knowing how to make a collage using pictures, she put together some poems she had written. Esther tells us...When the assignment was handed back, it had a note attached written by the teacher assistant who encouraged my writing.  I was able to have two of my poems selected to be published in a book with other student’s writings. 

Esther discovered that writing was a good source of therapy to deal with pain that she had experienced in her family from abuse. Her therapist encouraged her writing and suggested compiling and self publishing them in 1990 in a book entitled My Castle Wall, which is used as a tool to help other victims of abuse to know there is hope. Here’s a poem of hers to enjoy:

DO I BELIEVE?

I am successful.

Let me repeat;

I AM SUCCESSFUL.

But do I believe?

Intelligent words

escape from my lips,

but the feelings within

tell me I’ve lied.

I can see what I’m told;

the truths are clear.

But images within

mar the picture without.

When will my heart

believe my mind?

How will I know

when I am whole?

I reach, I grope,

then touch and understand.

All things come with time

and gentle guiding hands.

Someday my part

will be whole

and words will not be words alone

but emotions of my soul.