The Story: a poem

For all of you out there in the AA program, you will remember the first time you walked into a meeting and shared your story, then learned about the twelve steps. For all of you normies out there, it goes something like this:

The voice in the room sounded flat.
To him, the story wasn’t old
but none of us would tell him that
this story’s already been told.

He opened up, began to share.
We gathered words as if they’re gold
because though we were all aware
the story’s already been told,

a mirror is what he had shown
to us. We began to unfold
our guidance on how we had grown
for our stories have all been told

and we knew the path would not be
an easy one. If he were bold
and humble both he’d join and see
all our stories have been retold.

form poem: Kyrielle

3–15–23

Tansy Julie Soaring Eagle Paschold