Finally, a poem

I wanted to announce to all that I finally, after nearly three and a half years, wrote a poem. I felt as rusty as the Tin Man about it all-an apt simile, as without poetry, I felt I had lost my heart. The reasons I stopped writing are manifold--my mother was very ill that semester, and the seeds of estrangement that I am experiencing in full bloom today with three of my closest family members were just starting to happen then. So many things encroach on creativity, on any form of creativity, though, and there came a point when I had to stop blaming things that were happening outside myself (and beyond my control), and begin to at least live like a poet, to believe the thing that is closest to my heart would return.

An image came to me as I sat with my writing group on Friday night, the table loaded with food and Halloween decorations all around, candles and garlands, and a table runner printed with tiny pumpkins (my friend Ellen has the best decorations, all in the most pristine condition,as if they came out of the box yesterday). This is the thing I love about poetry--indeed, about all writing--the image or idea that just comes out of nowhere, like a spark. I took out my pocket notebook as I sat with my friends and wrote, "Now it has been a year; the moon hid her face behind soft rags of cloud." I realized I was writing about my beloved friend Harvey, who died last year in September--the one who always reassured me, over and over, that my writing would come back, that it was all waiting, biding its time "in my unconscious."

The next night, I just started to noodle around with lines. The floodgates of poetry didn't open, angelic trumpets didn't sound, heavenly choirs didn't sing--it was just me, long after midnight, darkness at my window, rustily making a poem. The ordinary magic of just being in the center of creating happened, and eventually, this was the result. I am sharing it knowing it is a first draft, and just what it is.

November Elegy

for Harvey Birenbaum

Night's tincture spills, deepens. Clouds
scour the sky, torn rags
tossed to the wind, mist
like the soul of this landscape
clinging to every light. When you eased
so gently from your life,
a thin husk battered by illness,
the new moon hid her face
behind a widow's veil of shadow.
This week, she is pregnant,
gives luminous birth. You told me once
that life is a circle, that everything we know
blossoms into language, over and over,
and though your body now slips
deeper into the earth each day,
I find I have more to ask you
as dry leaves skid across the sidewalk, nervous insomniacs
who refuse to lie down. Why is it always a shock,
the green world suddenly vanishing? Overnight, this gold,
this gray, and the iodine dark that descends too soon.
Tell me why the season's first rain
falls in hushed whispers,
the stunned grieving of a thousand mourners.

You have been gone a year.



So, I think there is hope for me as a poet. The picture with this blog shows a few candles on my desk, my Kwan Yin statue (which glows in the dark!), and in the forefront, a candle I ordered that week from the wonderful Zena Moon Candles (click on the link to see her website). This candle is yellow and orange, and has marvelous lemony translucencies throughout. Zena Moon's candles seem to all be named for a purpose--there are candles for seasons, birth, mourning, full and new moons, etc.--and this one is "A Candle for Writing." Well, maybe it did its magic, a little bit of magic for a dying season.

I thought of Asha Veil as I wrote this poem, too, and of all those who have lost beloved people. Not much is happening in Asha's case in terms of resolution, though her coworker in an unrelated case has been ordered to stand trial for sexual assault. Slowly, things happen, and I believe Asha's killer will eventually be found and brought to justice. As a friend of mine says, "The wheel of karma grinds slow and exceedingly fine." This goes for the election, too, and Rumsfeld's resignation--the people have spoken, loud and clear.