Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours showcases poems by northern Illinois poets. This week’s poet is Tracy Noel.
Noel is from Chicago. She came back to the Midwest after many years away. She has an interest in native cultures and ecology. She's traveled extensively. Noel received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Northland College in the north woods of Wisconsin. Since that time, she’s tried her hand at many challenges and occupations including tree-planting, clean-up after the EXXON/Valdez oil spill, sustainable agriculture research, for-profit and subsistence farming, landscaping, catering, teaching, tour guiding, fisheries research, and public speaking. While living in Oregon, she directed a small non-profit organization and a Youth Garden Project, educating about and advocating for healthy food production, food equality, and preservation of natural resources. Meanwhile, she helped to develop a vibrant movement to support healthy and local food production for local consumption. After moving back to Illinois, she honed her passion and skills as farmer/trainer for a non-profit training program that helps people rebuild their lives through food production. In recent years, she continues farming and teaching.
A skilled boater, Tracy likes to experience new places “from the water”. She gets most excited about sharing good food, spending time with family, hot summers, cold winters, sunshine, and lightning bugs. And she is most proud when people call her a farmer. Here’s her poem “Still.”
Oh to be still
The longing to cease the motion of human life
The self-made treadmill of ‘doing’
To be still for a moment
To rest body, and soul
To let mind wander, or not
Taste nothing
Feel nothing
Do nothing
But stillness does not come with a moment
It comes with practice, with habit
A still moment from a busy life is long enough only to notice
That feet ache
That joints are tender
That belly is empty
That heart races as it has been trained
Long enough for mind to recall an item left off the
list
To force body into motion again
