April 14, 2004
This is what I'm taking into my workshop session tomorrow. I was supposed to revise what was selected (out of three I had written) as the first stanza of a poem about Vermeer's painting and then write three possible second stanzas. I gave it my best shot, but that didn't work for me. What works for me is this:
Vermeer’s Lady Writing a Letter
She wonders what lie to tell him this time.
A husband returned from trade too soon?
A fretful child awake all night with fevered dreams?
What she can’t tell him is the silly truth –
that she’s taken scissors to her hair, again,
snipped away unruly ends, the ones
caught in the clasp of those perfect pearls
that each day lay around her neck like rosary
stones, heavy with penance and regret.
Her mirror knows the damage of her lies –
not just hair masked with pretty clips. Guilt
sets the line of her mouth, the shift of her eyes,
cringes beneath the rich lie of satin and ermine
and the expectations of perfect pearls.
At night she dreams of rubies, edges hard and bloody,
They circle her heart with fire, pour from her mouth like wine.
Her fingers rage with ruby talons; they swipe at pearls,
sending them like dust into the wind.
I'm ready with an old poem to go over in a private session with Grennon and 13 copies of both the fudged assignment and another old poem for the group to discuss. My brother will be here tomorrow to stay with my mom while I devote the late afternoon and evening to the world of poetry -- and maybe a bagel at Bruegger's in between.
And now I can go out and get some groceries. The Home Care nurse has been here to check on my mom and is going to send a physical therapist over next week to give us some exercises that might help my mom's pinched nerve.
I was going to go to BloggerConII this weekend, but there's no way I can do that now, and it doesn't look as though there'll be much of interest going on for me anyway. Anyway, priorities are priorities are priorities.
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Old Comments (1)
Kate S. on 17 Apr 2004
I have enjoyed watching you wrestle, in that part of me wriggles just from the uncomfortable memories associated with "poetry bootcamp" (which all workshops feel like to me,) and I'm gratefully relieved not to be going through THAT again ...
yet the other part of me is sad that it's been so long since I went through the struggle; my muscles -- weak and crying out for attention -- are making me itch.
This ambiguity has awakened to become an irritating roar of tides, so thank you for sharing your struggle with us. I hope you find a way to stick with it to the end, as your poem is beginning to reveal the fine lines of a delicate feminine alabaster sculpture underneath the layers of scaffolding.
She's quite magnificent.