Monday was a holiday for some folks, so I took fall break quite literally and completely unplugged for the weekend. It was wonderful, though I am a bit overwhelmed with e-mail at the moment.
I had a bad day yesterday. My sister had a bad day too. Today it's rainy and kind of yucky. My son was looking forward to his first tree-climbing class, but it looks as though it will be canceled. So, while last week we wrote about what makes us happy, today I'm thinking we should write about what makes us sad. Too depressing? I hope not. Sometimes the strangest things bring on melancholy and longing.
Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
Some of you might have read this poem before, but I want to bring this one back:
ReplyDeleteREMIND ME AGAIN
(for Linda)
By Steven Withrow
The day I failed my driver’s test
for backing a tire over the curb,
you sat in the back seat,
silent, a light purse on your lap,
behind the dour DMV man
busily signing his report
while my tousled teenage brain
began to imagine a car-less future―
not some magic kingdom of monorails
or a zeppelin city from comic books,
but me, alone, without a license,
feeling the forever shame of sixteen.
My mother, your sister, was home
with my brother and a daycare baby.
You’d offered to bring me,
let me drive your car, a compact,
patted my shoulder after it was done,
and said don’t worry, there’s always
next time, and you’d come along
again, if I wanted, for the ride.
I tried my best to explain it away
as nerves, a lack of practice time,
and you kept the radio on low
as you drove us back to my house.
Another day, twenty years on,
I stand outside Uncle Charlie’s
crocodile green convertible
watching you napping on
a neck-pillow, passenger’s side.
It’s my daughter’s birthday―
she’s three―and you won’t know me
when you open your eyes.
Remind me again how this goes:
your careless hope, your
kind and reassuring calm
no grinding failure can abrade.
Copyright 2011 Steven Withrow, all rights reserved
Lovely, Steven. I really enjoyed this.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGreat Post!
ReplyDeletehttp://ramblingsofacoffeeaddictedwrter.blogspot.com
Sycamore Tree
ReplyDeletewe shimmied branches,
straddled limbs,
bouncing, bouncing
you and me,
high in the ribs
of the sycamore tree.
we outflanked pirates,
sailed the seas—
sinewy, tall,
strong and free,
soft is the bark
of the sycamore tree.
we manned the tiller,
swung the jib,
carved our names
in the mottled tree,
flung our cares
to the sycamore sea.
but ebb tides, flood tides,
whirlpools, time,
saw catfish floating,
catfish dead,
catfish buried
in the riverbed:
gone are the branches,
gone is the tree,
gone is the berth
where the heart should be.
@ 2011 jgKrantz
Julie, I love the strong rhythm of this and its spiraling, songlike quality.
ReplyDeleteHigh School
ReplyDeleteI remember myself at 14.
It was 6:00 a.m., no one else
was awake. I stood
in the small bathroom staring
at the mirror like a lost soul.
My forehead wouldn't stop
frowning, but I carved my mouth
into a smile. Made myself
leave the house, throwing
myself off the cliff to fall
on the rocks of the day
that waited below.
Poor kid.
It would only be four more years
till happiness wrapped its arms
around me and said, "You're okay.
I've got you now." And 14 more
till I believed.
--Kate Coombs, 2011, all rights reserved
I love how this is one sustained statement, Kate, until you hit that crashing pause, to be buoyed up again by "Poor kid." Wonderful!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Steven!
ReplyDeleteI like the aunt in the backseat and the aunt in the backseat again; very poignant as well as a nice framing device.
Julie, great rhythm and great tree. I LOVE trees!
Ursula
ReplyDeleteI see a friend’s child for the first time,
now two years old,
who was never meant to live, and does.
She gallops across the convention floor,
exploring wall panels, table legs,
the fascinating up-and-down of an escalator.
Burbling around her trach tube,
she signs words for happy, more, want.
I turn away, eyes tearing,
afraid to frighten her with my relief.
But as she runs past, I whisper:
Happy. More. Want.
©2011 Jane Yolen all rights reserved
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhat a poem, Jane! So many emotions, and so much experience, so compactly packed, then released in those last three words!
ReplyDeleteKate--I love the metaphor, "throwing
ReplyDeletemyself off the cliff to fall
on the rocks of the day
that waited below." How sadly appropriate! So, too, the repercussions:
" And 14 more
till I believed." Nicely done.
Jane--Love your poem, Jane, especially the words the little girl signs: "happy. more. want." Says it all in 3 words!
I also like how the speaker's contradictory feelings of "eyes tearing... with my relief" echo this same motif... happiness in spite of pain, as does her final whisper: "happy. more. want." Wonderful.
Big smile. Thanks for the compliments.
ReplyDeleteJane
TATER TOT TUESDAY
ReplyDeleteTater Tot Tuesday
was my favorite school lunch
smother them in ketchup
crunch, crunch, crunch.
Since it was discontinued
I've been in a funk
Now they serve carrot sticks
Who wants to eat that junk?
(c) Charles Waters 2011 all rights reserved.