Signal Fire by Tyler Knott Gregson

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Typewriter Series #3066 | 11.13.20

www.tylerknott.com

Typewriter Series #3066 | 11.13.20

Tyler Knott Gregson
Nov 14, 2020
27
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Typewriter Series #3066 | 11.13.20

www.tylerknott.com

I have work to do. Plain and simple, I have work to do on myself, on the person I am, the person I want to become, and there are simple things that need shifting. Somehow along the way, we lose some of the childlike optimism and joy, somehow we lose the capacity for hope and tenderness and grace and peace. I know I still have some, I know it’s there and comes out often, but I see that I want more of it, I want it to be the default, not the occasional. This poem was born from that understanding, from seeing this shift over the last half decade, the shift into something slightly quieter, slightly more cynical, slightly more weary. I miss the way I felt when I was young, and I miss the way I feel when I’m traveling far from home, searching for sea glass or summiting Munros. Perhaps the love of travel that’s been planted so deeply inside me is, in truth, this…this pursuit of feeling like a child again, of feeling open to the world and all its beauty. I miss it, and I want it back, and so I’m going to aim right at it and not stop until I think I’m there. Then, I’ll try even harder, and not stop again. This is Typewriter Series #3066 and I hope you love it. Click Play below and you’ll here me read it aloud to you, if you so desire.

I’m to be built on new stuff, 

or the old that sleeps in the 

darker corners of this soul, 

the stuff I left and assumed

would grow on its own, 

unwatered, away from 

the light.

I’m to be gentle and curious,

patient despite reasons 

to be hasty, I’m to be calm

in the face of panic.  

I’m to be kindness, a wave

of compassion that consumes

and soaks all in its path.  

I’m to taste of tenderness

to make this life a poem

written in footsteps and hands

held out for the holding,

I’m to be new, or unearth

the old like excavation and 

hold it to the sun as dust 

falls from it like incense smoke

and discovery.  

Look close, spin it in your 

dirty fingers, it is I, new

though ancient.

Call me relic and wonder of

my origins, call me artifact

and wipe the residue of past

from all that used to

shine.

-Tyler Knott Gregson-


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Typewriter Series #3066 | 11.13.20

www.tylerknott.com
9 Comments
Carrie
Nov 14, 2020

Wow. I love this Tyler!!! Call me relic. So many great lines!

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Jessica Solchenberger
Nov 14, 2020

This is perhaps my favorite one you've written, and I've loved so many. Thank you for this. It's so timely ❤

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