Sailing Through Dreams – A Poem

For my newest nonfiction personal finance book, I wanted to use a poem by Maya Angelou.  I actually reached out to the publishing company that owned the rights to the poem and inquired about using it for this book.  They wanted to know all about the distribution, the first print run number, the book’s demographics, etc.  I was floored.

This was a wake up call.  I realized that I had to use something else!  So, I tried my hand at writing my own poem specific to this book and its goals to help people be their own best accountant using simple tools and common sense.  My book Making Dollars & Sense Work: A Financial Primer for Single Moms and Dads Plus College Kids, Too!  (Yeah, long title but really short very easily digested book — only 66 pages.)

This book also comes with two free downloads to help you.  One download is a letter to help you out of payday loan hell.  The other download is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet pre-loaded to create a one-page financial budget and tracker!

But I digress, the poem that opens the book is, as follows.  I hope you enjoy it!

Sailing Through Dreams

Dreaming our dreams we often fail;

to dream big enough or, strong enough

We discover a wave and then we shudder.

We re-jigger, re-boot, re-think and stall.

We form half-dreams that lead to half-lives

But, if we lift our thoughts, our voices, our eyes

Then, and only then, we’ll sail straight through our

and land upon our new reality’s shore.

for it to catch shape and sail.

in which we stumble and fall.

we can aim for higher highs;

dreams…

~ Rochelle Campbell