I am popping peas from their pods
Plucking carrots I sowed last May in nice, neat rows
Snapping the necks of courgettes
Pulling lettuce for supper, washing it, gussying it up like its a gala
instead of Wednesday night
I am eating ice cream everyday because it is sultry
Or to cool off after savage Scrabble games
Or inventing cozy mystery titles over dinner, like
“The Last Scrabble Match”
(where the victim has a U shoved down the throat)
I continue to cheat at crossword puzzles
The pets pant and lie on tiles
And shed like they want me to spin thread from their coats
I could knit into shawls for wintertime
I chase animal hair down the corridor
Like they are ghost town tumbleweeds
At the launderette I watch God go around with the wash
It’s spin cycle time
But the rains come and give the laundry on the line
Three heavy showers so it takes five days to dry
I still have to iron dry the cuffs and waistlines
I Hate ironing
I mention my not writing to my bestie who asks carefully if anything
is festering
I embark on a long
Extended metaphor about how it is more like compost building
And I have been doing that, too
Wet stuff, then the green matter scrunched up from the recycling bin
Then some chopped comfrey as an activator
But you need heat to make the good crumbly fertile stuff
That is perfection
And I am not sad. Or anxious. Really.
I remember the profound silence at the solar eclipse a month ago
When the whole world was holding its breath
It was that still, palpable
I held it like it was a touchstone or talisman
The blank page isn’t really scary
It is just waiting patiently for that moment
When the cloud formation speaks
And it is time to transcribe
Copyright 2018 Bee Smith
Oh, Bee… I woke this morning in a state of utmost, deepest loneliness … then found your poem. How I laughed at that ‘U’ being shoved down the victim’s throat!!
P
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Another poetry prescription might be Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” – “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely/ the world offers itself to your imagination,/calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -/over and over announcing your place/ in the family of things.”
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Lovely & evocative Bee. I can just see you gussying up the lettuce & stamping the shirt cuffs with a blazing hot iron.
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😆
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I adore this, Bee. ❤
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Thank you For the kind feedback. It helps facing the blank page.
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This totally made me smile. Glad to hear there is no onerous reason behind the blank page. 😊
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