My heart is a rain barrel under the eaves.
I’m setting up and storing by, swallowing run-off,
rushing to take the laundry in.
Our trashcans aren’t so full these days,
and the compost hill lies deep.
I burrow into places in myself
I scarcely knew I’d inherited.
A hidden root cellar, a garden shed,
a place to store canned fruits and beets in,
a place to ride out storms.
I always knew there’d be times like this,
that we'd have to re-learn someday
the art of making do.
There’s nothing so terrifying as the thought
that our way of life is not sustainable,
that we
are not sustainable.
When you are cold, I promise,
I’ll hang my lantern high.
I’m taking up needles and skein
so your sweaters won’t be threadbare.
I am your home. I drink you in
before the long dry spell.
My life could be taken up with the little things
and that’d be all right. Feel the timbers of this roof
grasp the earth a little tighter.
Know that sawgrass makes the best whistle,
and here is no such thing as an idle hour.
Author notes
For Patrick.
Comments
1 - 16 of 16
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Carved from Ozark hickory, and well polished.
language: 4, rhythm: 3, subject: 3, tone: 4, form: 3.
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such incouraging advice
Being grateful for the simpiliar things in life.
Softly spoken. Yet echo's deeply into our hearts, or soul. Thank you
language: 5, rhythm: 5, subject: 5, tone: 5, form: 5.
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wanted to ear mark you. Will come back and be a gentleman in my reviews. No worrys
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Excellent and emotional
It is so nice that you wrote this for Patrick. It is written not only from the heart, but with visual depth. I am much obliged to know an excellent fellow writer such as yourself.
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Your first stanza is brilliant and really hooked me, and I really like the poem alot, except that I thought your comment on the sustainability of our lifestyles - however valid - stuck out in the poem and, for me personally, marred the poem somewhat. I did wish it could be a message more interwoven in to the text when it appears. This is not a criticism as much as a personal taste, I think. Regardless I DID enjoy the poem! lol
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Hi, GmH. The poem is not about lifestyles, or at least, not only about lifestyles, but about mortality. Thanks for reading and the kind comment.
Pie
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Beautiful
This is truly fantastic. Your imagery is exquisite, and I'm enchanted with the way you mixed in very simple, everyday actions with deeply thought-provoking ideas.
Splendid job! I love it.
My favorite parts:
"There’s nothing so terrifying as the thought
that our way of life is not sustainable,
that we
are not sustainable."
&
"Feel the timbers of this roof
grasp the earth a little tighter."
Very well done.
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I don't think you need me to tell you that you can write, so I shan't, dearest Laurenpie. I only hope that the echoes of what I feel when I read this will one day compel me to express myself the way you do. Also that life won't always be so hard on you, or rather, that you continue to know how to do what you do despite the fact that life may be hard. (christmas makes me sentimental, sestra!)
I hope to hear from you soon, at least a hello (I'm not around here too much either); I'll keep you and Patrick in mind
Much love,
Nenni -
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Hi, Nenni. Thank you for stopping by and reading this one. I'm very pleased and touched this provoked such depth of feeling in you. Thanks also for keeping Patrick and me in your thoughts. Patrick is quite ill and I'm quite terrified, but we're trying to stay positive. Writing, as ever, is the one thing that gets me through.
I'm on break, so I'm hoping to swing by your page sometime this week and read your latest as well. Until then--
Love,
Lauren
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I love this poem. I absolutely do. It is fantastic.
It is amazing.
-Colin -
Patrick is a lucky guy indeed
to have such honesty and richness of feeling directed his way. The thing I've always loved about reading your stuff is just how wonderfully personal, natural, earthy it is. It is like you make love to your surroundings and become pregnant with the images, and then use them to express what you feel without a hint of pride or subterfuge. When I read your poems, honestly, I feel love, pure, unadulterated love, even if what you're writing about isn't particularly loveable. For instance, your "The Minotaur," a poem, if I'm not mistaken, about your very ambivalent feelings about your dad.
Anyway, I enjoyed this, and am somewhat jealous. It's been awhile since I've felt the way this poem makes me feel.
This isn't to say it doesn't need tightening, but I'm confident that you know this already. Anyone who writes like you doesn't need my advice, only my encouragement to keep it up. -
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PS, I definitely don't write with pride-- you may take credit for that. You helped me strip away the remains of any ego that was gumming up my creative works and let me write from a purer place. So again, I thank you.
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Thanks, Brandon. It's great to see you around again, and your encouragement comes at a much needed time. I haven't been around here much myself. This piece is for my husband, who is having health problems. As if that weren't enough, I'm going to school full-time, working, and still trying to write. The rejection slips and medical bills keeping piling up, and I have really been starting to despair of late. So thank you for the kind words. I appreciate the pregnancy metaphor. You have precisely articulated what I try to accomplish. I hope you're right about the love part as well-- sometimes I think being a writer makes me infinitely colder than any person should be.
Thanks also, for taking a peek at the soup poem-- it was definitely comfort food.
And when are we going to see new pieces from you?
Later,
Lauren
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this is very beautiful and nicely done. you did a great job with your imagery. love is a war and both sides have dug themselves deep within their trenches. every last scrap is cherished as they prepare for the long years of the nuclear fallout. where both sides orbit one another but not a word is said, not a touch is felt. maybe one of these sides in it's scorn realizes it's mistake and would willing sacrafices all it has in for the sake of something dead and gone. anyways that's what it kind of made me feel
language: 5, rhythm: 5, subject: 5, tone: 5, form: 5.
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Beautifully Haunting.
This is worth more than a once-over Pie.
Some lilting evocative lines here shine like gems on a shroud. The story sustains the flicker of images, grainy celluoid upon a melting screen.
"that we
are not sustainable."
No, nothing is.
Forgive the wan analysis of these first impression thoughts.
gG
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YES!
The language is beautiful. The imagery superb. well done!!
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