The climax of a real story is always movinggrowing upgraduationtruelovemarriagebecoming a mothergetting the kids to bed so you can finally sit down for the eveninghitting send to the publisher after a decade of writinggetting the kitchen clean after breakfast In stories, there is one climax. And then there is the hope of sustained joy.There isn’t…
Category: poetry
The Daily Turn #21: Blank Wall
Inspiration is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Take the blank wall I am staring at right now. Someone might see it as a barrier to creative thought, something solid and immovable, a metaphor for writer’s block. Windowless, it sheds no light on the question asked (what words are gathering just underneath the tip…
The Daily Turn #17: What Does a Poet Do All Day?
What does a poet do all day?I can only speculate,but have the feelingthat in this particular thick Georgia summer,it has something to dowith cataloging the daily intensitiesof rain.He studies and recordsin a landscape ofbuckets and beakers,prisms and pyrex(for the sake of the future),the effects of rainon the fragranceand colorof the world.
The Daily Turn #16: My Fat Little Baby
My fat little babyis reaching upfor something brightthat dangles–bangles of lightand brilliantcolor.His elbowsare deeply dimpled,his cheeks areperfectly-proportioned for a million kisses.There has never beena rolypolier boy. One day he will have dreamsof being an astronautor a fireman.He may want to write a bookor play guitar like his dada. But right now,all he hopes foris this:that I…
The Daily Turn #15: Sunflower
of courseit could mean only this:we need to clean the guttersof our house. But we both felt–upon seeing thestraight, strong stalkof a sunflowerstretching upfrom the rootsdug deep intothe ditch-bank-edgeof our roof(two-stories high)–that it wasa blessing,a definite metaphorfor something better.
The Daily Turn #14: walking with myself
If I could go back, I would walk with myself like a mother and child holding hands. I would say: Don’t be afraid of growing up. Don’t worry that you may lose one by one (to imagined fires, through open windows, at the hands of nonexistent strangers) every one, and that you couldn’t outlive the…
The Daily Turn #13: Daddy’s Garden
Walking again today through my Daddy’s garden I become a child. The scent of honey-sweet allysum is carried by the first wind of the end of summer. I can not find a poetic way to say that the towering hastas smell like honeysuckle and gardenias combined, but I don’t mind, because I do not yet read…
The Daily Turn #12: Tribe
There is a little tribe of peoplein this worldwho do not walk–they only run,and they have developeda sophisticated systemof survivingoff what they can reach(by moving step-stools,chairs, piano benches,laundry baskets, etc.)and what big peoplewill get for them. They have invented their own languageby exploring all possibleranges of the human voice,combining words fromoverheard conversations,foreign to them.Their language,unintelligible to us,is…
The Daily Turn #11: the exact opposite
sometimes I wonderif it is the exact opposite– instead of opening up the worlddoor by doorentering virtual roomsof texted talkingand mirrored projectionsof our public selves,our carefully constructed conversationstraveling fasterthan the speed of sound–the history of every relationshiptranscribed, day by day,line by line,summing up its failurein speechless abbreviations, (((Once, while we were taking a walk,we passed…
The Daily Turn #10: Glow
When I look back years from now on this particular summer I will remember the taste of lavender the laughter of children the sweat on my husband’s brow not furrowed, but soft rainbows over sunflowering eyes– A warm yellow memory, like spilled-out sun– the same brightness I have felt right in the core welling up…
The Daily Turn #9:The Lament of the Prince
the King and Queen, believing they were acting in the boy’s best interest, turned down girl after girl. “She’s not a Real Princess” obviously. Only a commoner could sleep in conditions like that– to a Real Princess, the intensity of feeling! the piercing perception! the pea, masked by mattresses one-hundred-fold, was perfect pain. nevertheless, the…
The Daily Turn #8: things noted on a morning walk
A black swallowtail on a lemon-yellow vine wings open, close, open shimmering blue velvet jewels The memory of a nameless flower that bloomed by the edge of the road last summer. looking for it, but finding no trace. An explanation of what stagnant means. A gutted house in the middle of a field abandoned for…