Duties as Designed by M.Stepanek

Duties as Designed

The job of the poet

Is to give birth to the words

That give breath to expressions

Of the essence of life.

The job of the poet

Is to leave stains of the storms

Yet echo laughter of the light

That is seen from the soul.

The job of the poet

Is to weave ashes of yesterthoughts

Into silhouettes that rise gently

On the horizon of dawning hope.

The job of the poet

Is to create and to capture

And to spirit and to script

The pulse of life.

 

February 14, 2003

By Mattie J.T. Stepanek

From Reflections of a Peacemaker: A Portrait Through Heartsongs

Published by Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2005

 

Mattie was born in 1990 with a life-threatening neuromuscular disease. He had three other siblings who were born with, and died from, the same disease. His mother has it as well. Mattie never knew his two oldest siblings, who died before Mattie was born, but he remembered one brother who died when Mattie was a preschooler. Mattie started writing what he came to call Heartsongs when he was three years old! He died in June of 2004, but during those nearly fourteen years of living and loving, he graced our world with his poetry, his wisdom, and his humor.

You can read all about Mattie at his website, and you can buy his books, one of which I've quoted from above with permission from his mother, Jeni Stepanek, at Amazon.com, or your favorite bookstore. I will probably add other poems  and thoughts as I walk through the year just because this little boy with the God-sized heart made such an impression on me several years ago when I saw him on the Oprah show.

I rediscovered Mattie when I found his most recent book at the local bookstore. I wanted to pass this information on to anyone who might want to discover Mattie, but I'm thinking most of you already have heard of him, or have heard him. If you have heard him speak, then you were touched as I was.

Bea