Author: Jenn Paredes

Jenn Paredes is a poet, wildlife biologist, and gardener living with her family of five in Tallahassee, Florida. She grew up on a pecan orchard in north central Florida where, instead of neighbors, she had books and forests to explore with her sister. Pursuing undeniable passions, she graduated twice with degrees from Florida State University, first in creative writing and later in environmental science. Jenn enjoys kayaking, daydreaming, singing, growing vegetables, multi-tiered metaphors and French pastries.

GS 26


Regeneration

after Viviane Houle

Mine is a recurring life from a recurring dream – we started off with lucid certainty, but upon finding we weren’t alone, became a scared and tangled mess.

This tousled madness of my youth weighs heavily on my heart; my heart, an overloaded nest, spilling over, reaching out to an infinite universe, burdened with knowing solitude.

The beginnings and endings are intertwining, messy; where we meet and where we part. We were all striking out, confident in our own wisdom to impart, to find ourselves caught intwined amidst one another, in competition.

Wasn’t I first? Now I am last? Yet, I am lasting.

Crashing in this eternal churning, cartwheeling motion. The spirals of life that spin us outward. The weaving emotions that sew us in.

The chaos defines our lives while our lives make order from chaos.

We are one. We are many. We are ordered. We are disheveled.

A cat’s cradle.

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