Linking with Shay's Word Garden Word List -- The Prodigy
Come join us!
Through
many windows life looks out...
Through windows rosy with young dreams
And windows grey with pain:
Through windows bright with hope's gay light
And windows dripping rain...
~George Elliston
I often think of the history of one life, not from a text book but one that may have been a grandmother to the second cousin of the lady I just passed in the cereal aisle. What was her story? What came of her first love? Did she die of a broken heart or natural causes, or is that the same thing? A million questions flood over me like when it rained last April. Does anyone still speak her name? Will she be remembered?
Sometimes I think that is
the most tragic part of it all; the thought of being forgotten!
Everything reminds me of all the numbered midnights with my
lost loves.
For life is surely a legend but death is truly famous and
not just on Sundays!
So, I write love letters to the world with ink not on my
hands but my heart,
saying, remember me!
The little girl, the rain storm, and
the old poet.
And each are the threading on the edges of my cotton cloth,
the one my mother was sewing long before I knew the colors I
myself would choose to wear.
After years of dishes, problems that linger like fat thighs,
and seeing more than I ever expected,
I find I view souls like books, enormous books with fine
print and chapters that cannot be counted.
The world is a library of beautiful and tragic stories.
It just makes me sad to think that some were never even
opened and read at all.
And this is why I love reading fiction or biography; to have a ticket inside of someone else's story, to hear the things unsaid and the story behind the story of a life. When i am in a situation where someone is talking about their life--I mean really talking about it, not Christmas card BS--I always have my ears pricked up; I could listen to that stuff all day. When people talk real talk it's never boring. I fully expect to be forgotten, but maybe my poems will have a life of their own beyond me. I don't write them for that, but still, maybe. Btw the fat thighs made me laugh out loud. Yep, those are eternal!
ReplyDeleteI read your empathic rumination and thought, what if we saw those around us as stories, poems, some penned giving voice to their experience and others not. Would it make us treat them more kindly, compassionately, wonderingly as you do here? Would it establish an immediate relationship, kinship? But maybe it's enough that we "write love letters to the world with ink not on my hands but my heart,/saying, remember me!" Love letters. I like that.
ReplyDeleteCarrie, this is beautiful. I think we poets understand more than most that every life has its amazing story - I always think they are more amazing than fiction, full of the unexpected. Each one hoping to be remembered. Your poem is very moving. I love that you are writing again because I so love reading you.
ReplyDeleteYour story poem gave me great pause for thought ... Dora's comment mirrored my reaction as well; would we treat folks more kindly if we could imagine their lives as stories, movies, poems, etc and I do believe the answer is a firm yes. If only.
ReplyDeleteyes, that 3rd to last stanza is so vivid and perceptive. that we might be someone's poetry, stained and creased pages and all ~
ReplyDelete