Poem in under five minutes?

 

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.