August 26, 2021 – Poem in under five minutes?
Tossing
out papers today, I ran up on a little treasure I want to share with you from
April of 2018 Writing workshop at the local college.
It comes
from the small poetry workshop sandwiched between two other writing workshops I
was interested in.
WHAT my mind screams.
“In
five minutes you say?” I tossed out to the instructor to be certain I heard him
correctly.
“You
are losing precious time,” he smirked.
I
restlessly twiddled my pen and then looked at the words on the slip of paper I
had been handed. Each of us got different words for this project.
Vinyl
Orchid
Cosmos
Spitfires
Japanese
swords
Ultra-marine
Tambourine
Cockleshells
They
are just so, . . . so, across the spectrum.
I’d just been told a poem doesn’t have to rhyme so I can just scatter
these items throughout, what? What could gather these all up into something?
My
first thought was all the interesting artifacts I came across the two weeks
before my Mom died. I’d driven home to
clean out Mom and Dad’s home to get it ready for sale, which included the
basement and attic. It took days.
Time
was wasting and I started with a working title.
Cleaning
out Mom’s House
I
started with the vinyl records.
Pitched
the dead orchid into the cosmos and vines.
I
boxed the model spitfires
with
the scared Japanese swords.
The
ultra-marine tambourine made me smile,
from
her belly-dancing days.
Seven
days later, I stood by her coffin.
One
day will her ghost ask me,
what I did with the
1,340
numbered cockleshells.
Of
course, we had to read them out to the class.
A gal sitting in front to the left managed to pull off a wonderful poem
about walking through a field, and one phrase she used I actually jotted down.
“Nothing
should slither like this.”
We
all knew she was talking about a snake.
I thought that was awesome, but she wrote poetry and knew what she was
doing. Me, I was in the dark.
I
was the last one to read as I was still sitting there twiddling my pen and
looking at my messy page.
I
recited my poem; I squeaked out the last two lines in tears not realizing how
deep I had driven down into the despair of my Mom passing and the emotional
roller-coaster I’d had cleaning out her house.
Rachel,
my writing friend knew what had triggered the tears. Me, I was stunned at how I fell apart.
I
did mention casually after I had regained my composure, “My Mom did take belly-dancing
lessons.” At least that was a bright
spot, a delightful memory to cling onto and buoy me up and allow me to wipe
away my tears.
Back
story: Reading my weekly letter from Mom one day, I was taken aback that she
was taking belly-dancing lessons as a form of exercise. I immediately phoned her and she mischievously
said, “I have castanets and a veil of sheer fabric.”
Mom
had signed up for the class as a lark, for fun.
When I asked Dad, he only said, “Oh, I drive her to the classes.” I always wondered what he did waiting on her. I never asked – good question. Lost.
