9/21/2011

Seattle 166, or poem

Most of what I've been writing lately has been Raizl/Rachel, but I had the opportunity to go to a workshop led by one of my very favorite poets. She told us to write a poem in which you, the writer, the person, are in someone else's dream; in fact, the other person doesn't know it's a dream, because they cannot see you. Your job is to make them a very, very good dream by doing magical things.

As soon as we began to write, I began to cry. There are very few things in the world that have that effect on me, to be honest, but my grandparents - and, frankly, old people in general - seem to sit on my tear ducts more than most things. I can hear horrific stories about the evils of the world without letting it touch me too hard - but if I see an older person being mocked, ignored, or somehow stripped of any dignity, I turn into an angry bull. Hearing old people talk about being old often makes me cry, in a sweet way. Anyway, this poem is about an older woman. In her dream, I get to return her young body to her.

When you see
your sweet young feet
come out
from under the covers
like a pair of prairie dogs,

don't be afraid.

I promise,
you will not Medusa them back
into cicada husks.
I traded eight years
and my name
for this,
so,
these are your feet.

Your skin has returned
from Lizard Land,
your are your husband's
doe-eyed teacher again,
the one from which
he learned everything about love.

The bed will be too soft, now.
Rise in one motion,
gazelle yourself out the door.

The lake is there,
and a sparrow is calling you Grandma
and you don't know why.

You don't answer,
because the lake is made of goulash,
and you are hungry
for the first time
since you realized
you would never be perfect.

When you are full,
a choir of strangers
who call you Mom
will come with their
soup bowls and sing all the water
back into your flesh.

You will be so pink again,
baby-tongue pink.

There is no loneliness.
You trade your afternoon television
to an owl
for passage up a snowy mountain.
He leaves you at the top,
where a mariachi band
blesses you over and over
with roses.

You will hear his voice, then,
on another mountaintop,
and know,
from the first step,
that you can walk there.

1 comment:

على جمال said...

تعتبر عمليه التخلص من الحشرات ومكافحة القوارض بأشكالها وأنواعها المختلفه ليست عمليه جماليه أو عمليه يمكن أن تتم بشكل ثانوى ولكنها عمليه أساسية لابد أن تتم فى وقتها من أجل التخلص من انتشار الحشرات بشكل كبير
ارقام مكافحة الحشرات بالرياض
كيف تتخلص من النمل الابيض؟