So...I was challenged today by two people: one who I have never met, and one who may not remember me.
The first, a blog-writer whose site I happened upon a few weeks ago, chastized her friends for not updating their blogs regularly. Since she doesn't know I exist, I can't pretend her words were meant for me, but I took them to heart and am more committed to keeping this site up. (By the way, thanks for the 17 comments about naming the new dog! It makes me feel good that someone out there may actually be reading these words. And thanks, Jake-the-dog, for your suggestion, but I won't name your new crate-mate "stupidhead.")
The second, a relative of a former roommate, has his artwork online, and I was impressed by his chutzpah. Any artistic endeavor is intensely personal, and there's no more vulnerable act than putting one's soul on display for the general public.
As a writer (I love that I can actually claim that title--for another month, anyway), I pretend that my art is even more personal than the visual arts, as a landscape or portrait doesn't explicitly announce the artist's psyche. But that's a bunch of bunk. Regardless of the medium, publicly displaying artistic expression is frightening. And, since I am already feeling overwhelmingly frightened and insecure over this whole moving-to-Europe-again thing, I figure I might as well add to my discomfort and put some poetry on-line. Jen (the before-mentioned former roommate) put one of my poems on her blog a while ago, and I don't want to re-publish that one again... so which one to choose...
Remember, my mother reads this.
Ok. We'll go with this one. It has a title, but I'm unsure of it, so if you have a good idea (and no, "Almost as Good as Something David Would Write" isn't an appropriate title), let me know.
GRIEF
When the truck spilled firewood,
scattered across my driveway
for all the neighbors to see,
I cursed it.
Sticks, logs, kindling,
piled under and over.
Sawdust-peppered wounds:
reminders of chainsaws, lumberjacks
and long hauls down a mountain.
It was a mess.
An overcoming mess
to separate, stack and sweep
while neighbors whispered from behind
ironed drapes and tinseled trees,
"look, she's at it again."
As if I like the work, or invited the truck to come.
I cursed the truck, its load,
my need for it.
I sweated, yanked, hefted.
Until the day all was clean again.
A beautiful pile of stumps, branches
and pinecones. Each day I gathered
logs, sticks, and kindling.
Bundled them inside, and was warm.
Still weary, I stand beside my fire, watching the truck
return, stop, dump
its load in someone else's drive.
I leave my coffee to cool.
Shut the door behind me.
And help her stack
her firewood.
9 years ago
5 comments:
Annie -
I love your willingness to put your writing up here - a challenge to me as well! It also has given me an idea... we should put together a separate blog just for our writing and "artwork" type stuff. There's a way to make a blog accessible to more than one user. Just a thought. :)
Good thought! What should we call it? I've always wanted to name a book "The Expatriate Letters," but that would seem to preclude non-liteary art forms.
Got a good title idea?
I love "The Expatriot Letters" as a title - and, like The Pickwick Papers in Little Women, I think we could fudge a bit on what is included in "letters." :)
Isn't "The Pickwick Papers" a Dickens' novel? The one where he America bashes? Ok, off to Google.
OK--back from Google. Yes on Dickens, not on the America thing (that work is titled American Notes, creatively enough)
Do the March women read Pickwick Papers?
I'm confused.
...and thanks for correcting my spelling. :) I would like to say that "expatriate" was a misspelling, but "liteary" was a type.
Why does blogspot say I only have one comment? There are many here.
and both "liteary" and "type" were typos.
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