The Summer I Was Ten

The summer I was ten

I rounded up the neighborhood kids 

to put on a play: 

Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney rolled into one.

I wrote the script,

designed the program and sets,

assigned the parts,

directed rehearsals and even

canceled the cookies my mother promised to bake

when everyone grew tired of playing my game.

Sure was a relief for all concerned when

partway through July 

I turned 11.

PROMPT: The summer I was 10, of course. There's a great May Swenson poem called "The Centaur" that is about this same subject. Follow the link to print off a copy and share as a way to introduce the prompt.

Ask and See

What if every time we felt a whisker

we would speak in whispers?

If work was a longer word

would we play more and talk less?

If all paper was story-white
would I write thicker plots?

Which woman's gift to man
created moan?

Does that last stanza make you

as mad as it makes me?
Which goddess have we to thank for d?

Will we someday no the difference
between ask and see?

PROMPT: I chose words from my magnetic tile stash that appealed to me that day (I have lots!). I also was interested in paradox--between similar spellings but divergent meanings, for instance.

Taking Stock

1.

We are all in this soup together:
Each one with a place at an enormous table. 
Every one with the taste of story tender-

loined on a tongue sick with secrets,
a tongue that talks us. 
It is a kind of death.

2.

Lips long for kisses but get easy flavor. 

Ears want understanding but do not listen. 

Fingers grasp but do not feel.

And for the breath the word the voice

there is no drink.

3.

And so I write the rich sauce of our love

onto the steam of this day.
I savor the thick, smooth salt of

what time there is. I will make my stock of

all that is uncertain.

PROMPT: I chose words from my magnetic tile stash that appealed to me that day (I have lots!). The stanzas of this particular poem neatly emerged on three consecutive days.

Life Comes in When We Make an Opening

PROMPT: Write about a time the universe opened and spoke to you. Here's what it said to me...

My husband Chris and I like to have weekend lunches at a nearby cafe. A couple months ago while driving the mile or so there, someone cut us off in traffic. Chris is generally a patient man, but drivers who push (or completely flaunt) the rules (and laws!) of how to behave on the road set him off.

We had been discussing the website we planned to create--the one we plan to develop around this blog--and our intention was to continue discussing it over lunch. But the tone of the conversation changed mid-route because of someone else's inconsiderate behavior, which, if you've driven lately, you know is about as routine as leaves falling in autumn. Chris had every right to feel belligerent. He started to speed up, as if to catch up with the other guy--and do what? Shake his fist?

I didn't want this to spoil our day, so I said something like, "He probably did what he did because someone cut him off, and the way he got back was doing it to you." And then I added, "You know, I'm really trying to live in a way that opens up possibilities. If I can let another driver in who seems in a big hurry, then I try to let go of the frustration I feel over his arrogance. Maybe it means someone down the road will open up a space for me next time I need it."

I didn't come by this conversion to more gracious living easily. I've always been an aggressive driver, ready to pounce on any opening and suck it up for myself. But on June 13, 2008 (yes, it was a Friday), I had a really bad accident. Sure there were extenuating circumstances--a broken turn light, too many cars, and the other guy going too fast. But insurance-wise, it was my fault. Both cars were totaled. Thankfully, both drivers walked away without a scratch.

But it shook me up big-time. I could hardly drive at all for close to six months. I still plot routes with right turns only whenever possible. The accident slowed me down. The other driver was a young man of about 20. I hope it slowed him down, too.

That day on the way to lunch with Chris, I didn't want to sound preachy, and he didn't take it that way because I prefaced what I said with "Since my accident..." He knows how close he came to losing me, and he's glad it made me think about driving differently. By the time I finished saying what I had to say, we'd arrived at the restaurant and parked. We approached the vestibule entrance at about the same time as a young mother and her daughter, who appeared to be about 4 years old. Chris held the outer door open for them to go in before us. He does this a lot for people; he's a considerate man. The woman thanked him, which often doesn't happen.

Then when she got to the inner door, she stopped and held it open for us. To top it off, she said to her child, "Now we need to hold the door for them because they were kind enough to hold it for us." The little girl nodded and helped her mom hold the door open. This never happens!!

I scoped out a table. Chris ordered the food and brought the tray over. "Can you believe that?" one of us asked. I can't remember who spoke first because we both were so wowed that the universe had just opened up and spoken to us.

There's a web of energy in this world that connects absolutely everything. I believe that. I can't show it to you or prove scientifically that it exists. But I think about it as a sort of huge dynamo--an engine meant to hum along efficiently instead of clank and clog. When we fine-tune ourselves to work in harmony with it, amazing things happen.

Being at my desk each and every day, expecting a poem to come is one of those amazing things. It's like that opening I make in traffic for another car or the door Chris holds open for another person. Who or what comes in is up to the universe. Whether I make time for it and welcome what happens along is up to me.

I think that's what "Piggyback Poetry" (see post below) was telling me. Just after I wrote it, I thought it was a lot of seeming nonsense held together by too many words that begin with "p." But now I see that it carries a deeper idea--that poetry (the "p" word) evolves out of looking at everyday events in a new way and really taking in what comes. It is a sort of piggyback ride. But the catch is, if I'm not here, open to it, nothing comes at all.

Be at your desk.

Be present in your life.

Watch and wait.

The world opens.

Write it down.

Piggyback Poetry

Put a petal pie on page.
Picture puppy paragraphs at play.
Pierce the present pink with purple.
Plot prisoner prawns to power-over 
pasta and pesto and pound polenta 
into porcelain and proud perfume.
Plant peaches with prosciutto and peace 
and poison. Protect all passions 
all prostitutes perhaps but
no parents no puppets 
and above all
no poets. 


That is howl you
piggyback poetry.


PROMPT: Magnetic word tiles selected on the basis of what appealed to me that day. (I have LOTS!) with a focus on "P" words.

Mistakes Count for More Than You Know

PROMPT: Write about a mistake made that turned out for the best.

I began this blog and the poem-a-day experiment with just the basic set of magnetic word and letter tiles. After only a week I started seeing a lot of the same words show up again and again. The wordie in me longed for greater variety! That's when I pointed my browser to the Magnetic Poetry website and ordered more.

What I meant to order was The Poet's Kit, Writers Remedy, Book Lover, Foodie and Bird Lover. But when the much-anticipated box arrived a few days later, Fatherhood appeared in place of Bird Lover. I dug from my files the receipt I printed at the time I ordered, fully expecting to find the supplier in error. But there it was, plain as day: Fatherhood.

I tried to think back to the day I placed the order. Did I have a last-minute attack of weirdness? I carry a lot of angst in the fatherhood department. I've written about it, but it's hard. It hurts a lot and doesn't seem to accomplish much. It ends up being way too personal and just sounds angry, which is probably because I am still angry over it. Did I think this might help me approach it in a new way? Or did the scroll wheel on my mouse simply change what I ordered when I wasn't paying attention?

Either way, I decided to keep the kit. I've learned mistakes happen sometimes for a reason, but still I unpacked this kit last. Somehow I just wasn't ready to get into those words. And when I did, I spent a couple days obsessing over how sappy they were. Yet each day when I came to my desk to write, I opened the box again and looked at a few more, until today, when I pulled them out and started to arrange and compose with them.

Last week after the new kits arrived, I bought some stuff to help me organize my new wealth of words for easy access. There's a cupcake tin for sorting the bigger words alphabetically and a cake pan with a snap-on lid for storing everything. I also bought a half-dozen or so personal-size pizza pans to separate out the prefixes and suffixes, along with all the "glue" words. I have pans for conjunctions, articles, helping verbs, prepositions--well, you get the idea.

There's also a pan where I tossed glue words I haven't organized yet. Among the words it holds are negatives--no, not and never. As I read the Fatherhood words I thought how they were not what I experienced, and I ended up writing the poem displayed in the post below this one, Not-Father. The process of working with the magnetic words helped me to stand back from my own experience and universalize it in a way that it wasn't just about me anymore. But it still holds the sense of loss I want to convey.

Writers--and people in all walks of life--need to pay close attention to their mistakes. Not because they necessarily need to "make up" for them or correct anything, but because the mistake may be the breadcrumb they follow to a new place. It may be the "new thing" that solves pollution or world hunger. Just think about the origins of post it notes, for goodness sake!

In Tarot--which I admittedly know next-to-nothing about--the Fool card is considered an advantageous one to draw. The image on the card is of a young man blithely walking along, a little dog at his heels, unaware of the cliff he is about to walk over.

Of course, this could be disastrous too. But if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got, right? I say try something new. Shake things up. Make a few really incredible mistakes.

If you get a poem out of it, so much the better.

Not-Father

Not-Father grumps through parenting 

not breathing the smoke he spanks at the girl   

not happy  not funny   not wise   

not watching what he gives her 

to not remember


PROMPT: Magnetic word tiles selected on the basis of what appealed to me that day. (I have LOTS!) "Not" and what I could pair with it presented itself as a theme early in my selection process.