Affirmations Poem by Lonnie Hicks

In the slippings of my mind-
the errant misses
the missing blisses-
gather together all the remisses
all cousins
each making statements
proud and forelorn
joyous and now shorn
of all excuses and illusions
and pretty color smoke mirrors
to state simply and clearly
how each in accounting for itself
could explain
my great and small decisions
each bickering with one another
each casting subtle blame
as to how the other
had ruined me, my name
caused trouble and mayhem
whilst I looked on

saying:
'Each of you made me what I am
merely human.'

With a start they all looked up
one stating
'you are merely the sum
we are the parts
without us you lack meaning.'

'Yes, we' they said 'are your constituents
we gave birth you and all your musings
our parts are greater than your whole, true this.'
they said blending together in chorus.


They stepped back all celebrating their often stated contention;
We are all you are and can hope to be'

I blanched, stammering out my truth to wit:

'Parts are called parts because they are merely parts not wholes
and I am not you because I have in my life
assumulated all of you
and in doing so have become something other;
that you, mere parts, cannot comprehend having only the vantage point
of the past, while I present the Present Whole'

'Can a nose comprehend a face?
Can a mouth understand speech? '

'While all you parts are there
you are not my person whole
and that whole is who I am.'

'More' I said proudly
'even as each of you may be flawed
I am hope, promise and reality not a part
but the whole.
Each of you is not I, the whole.'

They all went slinking away from the shimmering light
my words bring.


I love this dream.
Each morning
it makes me wake smiling
from the knowledge

I can do anything I want;
After all it is My dream.