Dear Reader,
I don’t remember thinking, “Hey, why not spend an hour on Pinterest this afternoon, something I haven’t done in years?” But here we are.
Word Raccoon is not permitted to start any household projects the day before company, and so must content herself with making a nice long list of ways she wants to get ahold of this place later. Looks like it’s going to require vintage china, plate hanging tabs, and picture frames at the bare minimum. More wallpaper is on its way.
We took notes for poems earlier today. We feel them ripening.
We do not want to submit poetry.
We did want to note that it wasn’t Fellini who made the documentary of the 1966 flood of Florence, but actually Franco Zeffirelli. A part of it is available on YouTube, but only in Italian with no subtitles available. Our bad.
As the title of this post says, I don’t really want to do the work today. The song, the interwebs tells me, comes from the 2016 musical Firebringer, but I’m so lazy I’m not even gonna confirm. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard that song clip many times now.
It seems apt for my and WR’s state of mind today. We were going to record a poem, but we’re thinking next week is soon enough.
I should probably make a declaration at this point about how it doesn’t matter how overtired I am, or overpeopled. It doesn’t matter that I feel uninspired, I should just pull out my notes and start crafting.
Part of me wants to do that. Truly.
Another part of me acknowledges that this is the first Mother’s Day since my mother’s passing.
Every draft of a poem I look at seems like drivel, like a box of Band-aids: just cover every strong feeling you have in a poem and you’ll be fine. Grief? Poem. Love? Poem. Pretty tulip? Poem. Feel awkward? Poem.
I want like anything to believe that poetry is the best cure for a cracked heart, but my nephew will be without his mother for the first Mother’s Day, too. He’s graduating in less than a month now. My mother was his second mother, so he’s lost two mothers, in a sense. My heart hurts for him.
I’d bring him a wheelbarrow full of poetry if I thought it might help.
Life is good, always. But also…oh hell, why don’t I just write a poem?
No, I just can’t leave this post like this. It will be a good day, if a little sad. There will be the traditional lasagna, the receiving of gifts, a visit from Zack. (Sadly, Mia lives at a distance.) I have fought for almost a year to grieve, and we honor those we love best if we live full, happy, loves. (Call me overly sentimental. I dare you. You would never. Would you?)
So here’s a poem I wrote that has absolutely nothing to do with the occasion. It’s just a poem I wrote a while back, I don’t remember when, last month I think, and this is a first draft, so you know the drill…be kind, please. It needs work, for sure. (I feel like I just over “comma-ed” everything. Don’t care. Maybe they were on sale.)
Original
Thrift Shops, Poetry Flophouses
Thrift shops are really just poetry
prop shops.
But the stories everything carries,
from tchotchkes (kissing Hummels, Marilyn plates from Franklin Mint),
to crocheted appliances;
from a set struck
from your grandparents’ kitchen,
to that Caboodle you could never afford,
to a bridal veil with a ghost of tobacco
that you will resurrect in a bathroom baptism
All you have to do is roam a store
to leave with
a free pocketful of poems,
and you haven’t even
shoplifted.
First Revision
Thrift Shops = Poetry Prophouses
Hummel figurines, childish mouths open for a kiss,
Marilyn simpers from a plate by Franklin Mint,
a set of crocheted magnets (stove, fridge, sink)
that you’re pretty sure your grandma had.
A Caboodle from your 1988 Christmas list
that you didn’t get mocks you with makeup stains.
A bridal veil possessed by tobacco
you will free by baptism
in the bathtub.
It’s the only store where
you don’t have to buy anything
to walk out with a pocketful
without even
shoplifting.
I don’t love the revision. Revision is strange because sometimes you strengthen a poem and simultaneously lose something you loved about it. I thought I was sharpening this one, making it more image-based, more emotionally grounded in the objects themselves instead of my commentary about them.
And I think I did. The Caboodle line in particular feels sadder to me now, more specific. But somewhere along the way, I may also have revised out a little of the raccoon energy, the fun of “poetry prop shops” and walking out with a “free pocketful of poems.”
Maybe that’s the real work of revision, though, deciding which ghosts get to stay in the house. One version wanders the aisles talking too much, delighted by everything. The other picks up each object and holds onto it a little too long. I genuinely don’t know yet which one I prefer, which probably means both versions are telling me something.
I’ll stew on it, but another day, because remember: I don’t really want to do the work today.
At least I revised one poem, even if I am going to likely revert mostly to the original. So maybe I do want to do the work. I confuse me some days.
Not so silently after all,
Drema
dremadrudge.com 