Here doing this
by windchime (Member) - published: March 14, 2008
Word Count: 169 Word Bytes: 1225 Viewed: 447 times
Category - Poetry
© Copyright by windchime

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"I stand here Ironing"
she wrote as her title
the American Tillie Olsen
& she made shocking revelation
shimmy
from foreground to background
& I thought one day I'll write
short stories like that
but all I could muster decades later
was

*

I stand here dicing
root vegetables on a birch board
wondering if my mother and aunts knew
which bird nested in their own
striated kitchen knife ruts
when they were still trees...
& no I don't want plastic
for my mounds of turnip-carrot
about to join their barley
in soup
I want my grandmothers I never knew
I want a sister no one gave me

*

I sit here thinking
inhaled exhaled fragrance of hibernal
stovetop
look down at my not-gnarled hands
extremities that have touched
far more people than vegetation
& out my patio door
that falling snow has gone from gentle
to blowing to white-out fury

*

& I write here and I right here
right proper winter
aloneness
as if it were vision.

------
Of all known institutions, I attend only two: church, in my heart, and school, in yours. Both are subject to demolition. - Lucie Adams, 2007
It is only for poetry to know how many stanzas fit into one caress. - Lucie Adams, 2008

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Comments

The following comments are for "Here doing this"
by windchime

doing and being
find most compelling how each “doing this” generates/ connects to a sense of “being there”, for reader and for poet-self (?) … I am so very porridge brained, Lucie (especially today), and I probably miss/misinterpret the point, but to me this poem is important especially at the level of connectivity, where the dicing, thinking, writing, righting actions access mother, aunts, grandmothers, sisters, winter, aloneness, and on and on, until I feel I might be connected to poet-Lucie too...

this is beautiful, Lucie, not only expresses but extrapresses ;) you didn’t muster, you mastered, friend.

please excuse my rambling, your poem was beautiful.

( Posted by: AuldMiseryGuts [Member] On: March 15, 2008 )

Hearty Fare, Lucie
This poem has to be read to oneself to be able to catch the homonyms right/write, and the pun (intentional?) in "not-knarled."

Love this:

"she made shocking revelation
shimmy
from foreground to background"

I like the association of the root vegatables with the subject; same with wood -vs- plastic.

We are brought, in reading it, to curl like smoke through time and place, with you as the source. Lovely and nutritious stew.

~ John

( Posted by: Flonigus [Member] On: March 15, 2008 )

windchime/ on doing..
Lucie-
layers of flavours...

you can't always get what you want/ but you know sometimes/ we get what we need - to paraphrase Stones..

another pleasurable read...

B

( Posted by: Bobby7L [Member] On: March 18, 2008 )

Lucie slices veggies
I hesitate to use the word "emotion" because most people think of “emotions” as “feelings”
about things, or “reactions” to situations.

This is a completely emotional journey in terms of excellent expression; you have expressed all that is sensory about the emotional. Something that has much more weight that just how someone feels.

Your own stark statement of
"I stand here dicing/root vegetables on a birch board/wondering if my mother and aunts knew/which bird nested in their own/striated kitchen knife ruts/when they were still trees..."

At first I saw it as really great humor -- the wise kind of humor that is found where we think there should not be anything humorous to behold. But there it is; the perfect balance to "I Stand Here Ironing".

But then it is much more than a humorous twist, isn’t it? I still have a big smile seeing how Olsen’s message has become your own, or actually has been yours all the time. Like when the good witch tells Dorothy “You could have gone home anytime you wanted”.

Your lines
"look down at my not-gnarled hands/extremities that have touched/far more people than vegetation"

Give us the piece of Lucie in this poem that ties it to the Tillie Olsen reference. I had to research a little about Olsen's story. It is described as "a working-class mother who must hold down a job and care for children at the same time." I would describe your “Here Doing This” in similar fashion. “A working woman who is devoted to the care of others but still slices her own root vegetables, and then writes great poems that make us think.”

Excellent
BW

( Posted by: BWOz [Member] On: March 19, 2008 )

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