Blue Mountain Arts Poetry Contest

Dear searcher, longer, dreamer —
by Rebecca Puterbaugh

THirty-FIFth
Contest
Honorable Mention

You are entitled to live creatively.
Black, white, skinny, fat, poor, rich,
femme, macho, gay, straight, both, neither:

you are entitled to take up space
with ink, paint, clay, or prayer,
flower, food, wood, or stone,
song, feet, hands, the curve
of hip and arm, laughter and tears,
hands held or hands stretched upwards,
solitary, only Spirit in witness.

Be stubborn in your right
to live big, live magically, live
expansively, like the sky or
the trees (you are made of
all the same stuff, after all).

Sincerely,

your ancestors
who painted on cave walls
with fingers and wet ashes,
and gathered wild seeds
to plant them in rows,

just to see
what would happen.

About the Author

Rebecca Puterbaugh is a writer, mother, and student in Oregon. She has self-published three poetry books, Reveries, Cycles, and Shadows Form Light, and can be found on Instagram @thewildintuitive, her blog thewildintuitive.home.blog, and her podcast The Wild Intuitive.