Word Raccoon is irritated. She is sick. She does not want to be sick, because weren’t we just sick a few months ago? Sigh. Her throat wants a pot of tea and a box of popsicles simultaneously.
Yesterday, she spent most of the day reading Listen for the Lie, a fast, fun read about a true podcaster looking for the truth in a murder case. Recommended by someone, somewhere.
We used to listen to lots of true crime podcasts, thinking we could solve unsolved cases. We decided we cannot. And that they’re a little too sad to listen to nowadays on the regular.
In keeping with our intention to touch our poetry every day in April, no matter how we feel, we read the group prompts today and then “prompt”ly ignored them as we shifted into a different poem, thumbs on our phone, notes app open.
Here’s the first of my “notebook” poems I’m going to share. This is it just as it came out, and me feeling my way through early drafts. More drafts to come, I’m sure.
I don’t remember what the prompts were, but I remember thinking that I wanted to write about something else that sticks in my craw. (Is that a cliché? WR does not care. She just wants her throat to feel better.)
That something else? The acknowledgement of reality vs. hope.
Be kind to my little baby poem as I move through it, please. Here it is exactly as I drafted it in bed. (The capitalization is automatic in the app as I change lines, so IDK where I will end up with that.)
Speaking what is
Does not break
Hope’s bones.
Reality is concrete,
Like the patio
Outside my grandmother’s
Chicken house.
And yet, she always looked
For eggs.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing. Now let’s wander through it, see if we can tighten it a bit.
I think I would be tempted to italicize what is to highlight that we are talking about reality.
Speaking what is
I’m on the fence about keeping Hope’s with a capital H. I’m thinking yes? Seems very Emily Dickinson. Those other accidental capitals? Eh, we don’t need those.
Concrete. I went from non-concrete to, well, concrete, a physical image. Not mad about that. It was intentional, obviously.
Patio – actually, I was picturing the concrete porch to my grandmother’s house, painted brick red. In my mind, I moved the “patio” out back to the…
I say chicken house. Don’t we usually say “hen house” or “chicken coop?” Yet it came out chicken house. Not sure how I feel about that. Might change it.
I really like that last couplet, “And yet, she always looked/For eggs.” But I would lowercase the “for.” Tempted to say more about the eggs, change the verb to something more vivid like “hunt,” or “search?”
Let’s see where we are now:
Speaking what is
does not break
Hope’s bones.
Reality is concrete,
like the patio
outside my grandmother’s
chicken house.
And yet, she hunted
for eggs
every morning.
Okay, I definitely changed that last stanza. I think I’m in danger of overexplaining.
Hmm…what I’m trying to say is that my grandmother (great-grandmother, actually) never knew if there would be eggs. Maybe they’d stopped laying as they would occasionally. Maybe a dog had wedged its way into the chicken coop and terrorized and maimed some of them, as sometimes happened, too. But she went to that house with her cup of feed extended, clucking to them as if they were her friends, her wrists thick, one weighed down with a silver-banded watch, and she reached down into their hiding spots.
She hoped for eggs. She believed she would find them, and she usually did, gently putting them into her apron pockets. (I loved her colorful aprons: rainbow colored, or roses, or just pink-and-white gingham.)
This poem has more to say, maybe, I don’t know. But right now, I don’t. I’m going to make a cup of tea, take a warm shower, and decide if I want to read or play with words.
I’m definitely not thinking about my grandmother’s hair, past her waist, the way she’d make two braids and pin them on either side of her head in a crown. How I wished she’d do that with my hair, but I never asked.
Definitely not remembering her biscuits and sausage patties, yes, those eggs fried as if she were a short order cook. (When she was growing up, she and her mother would get up way early in the morning and make breakfast for all the family members and field hands farming, a whole bunch, from what I understand. They’d make full breakfasts, and she always cooked with confidence and speed. And skill!)
How she cried one day when her favorite chicken, the one with the black ruff, was mauled. How she championed her “banty rooster,” regardless of what the neighbors said.
This poem has more to say, maybe, I don’t know. But right now, I’m going to make a cup of tea, take a warm shower, and decide if I want to read or play with words.
Unfortunately, I’ve finished Portlandia. What a trip.
dremadrudge.com 