365 days of being a writer: day 331

I am on a borrowed laptop. My old HP and my new Macbook Pro are at a Genius bar being mind-melded into one.

While I was transferring files from my external drive to my soon-to-be backup laptop, I got to revisit many of my submissions folders and what I consider my "old writing." There is a lot of poetry in the old writing. I never did (or have) taken my poetry seriously. I take other people's poetry very seriously. I can recite more from poetry I've loved than I can from essays I've loved.

I am in awe of the poets I know. I marvel at their commitment. Maybe I don't consider myself brave enough to be a poet, or true enough. But the poems go back to junior high. Even earlier, if I consider song-poems I wrote and illustrated when I was in grade school. Part of what I love about creative nonfiction is the leeway for lyricism. I am a romantic; I like lovely turns of phrases--that lends itself to terrible poetry (it seems) and evocative essays (I hope).

What this means, is that I will be taking one of my workshop semesters in poetry. Maybe I can get over the belief that my poems are silly.

The fifteen-year poem

This poem was published by the Rio Review, Fall 2009. I wrote the first draft in 1993 as part of a poetry seminar in art school. The editors wanted several changes, some of which I agreed with, some I didn't. Here is the version I would have printed.

LIKE THE WEATHER
In the darkness
he murmurs
something about rain
           his fingertips on her cool skin

flicker
like the light of one hundred
finches, parakeets, love birds
in Hawkes' Molotov cocktail
dream
          whose feathers
swish and float
before the rush of fire

—This stillness
between them

a possibly skillful sound:
rain on the cool roof
wraps around the windows

as sheets twist
around bodies twined
tracing arcs
in the negative space

These moments
           between seconds

the clock chatters quietly
tick-talks to itself
but its black thin arms
aren't moving

Hair and hips sway
to the tune of fingertips
or cold clock hands
The rain echoes the rhythm
of dying songbirds
           against the glass

while quietly
between fingers
pressing
           feather light

two pulses whisper
to each other
something about the weather.