August 24, 2018
Just finished a phone conversation with grandson Ben who will complete an internship at Facebook on Friday, fly home to Dayton Ohio on Saturday, be in Dayton with his mother Sunday, and then drive to North Carolina for his senior year at Duke University.
As usual our conversation began chatty and ended up among the mysteries. He asked me two sets of questions.
- Now that you are a senior, what would you say is your purpose? What constitutes meaning for you? As for purpose, did it change along the way and how did purpose then affect what you did or who you were?
- How do you find the idea or stimulus that leads to a poem?
What insightful questions for a college senior! What wonderful questions to shut me up!
I’ll fiddle in this blog with the second question because it’s easier. The first set of questions requires a great deal of rumination.
———
What motives a poem? I am not a published poet nor do I consider myself a teacher of poetry. But I occasionally write a poem. Most fade quickly. Some of them I like over an extended period of time.
Tomatoes
Too tender for early May,
Beefsteak and Early Girl
shivered low
under the garden caps.
They did adolescence
in June and July,
getting themselves
pregnant.
In hot August
they split their sides
laughing at play,
red-faced in the sun.
Now with September weather
gone south, they
again shiver, cold and old,
not about to turn over a new leaf.
I throw a tarp over them,
a warm sheet for a time,
later a shroud.
Where did the idea come from? Cultivating tomatoes here in my little garden. Where did the sexual reference come from? The names of tomato varieties. And that set up the notion of life span. I’m unable to elucidate further.
The garden here on our property and at The Juniper Spoon’s garden often offer images that call forth metaphors and similes, impersonations and human emotions. Recently I tried to express each image in three lines.
In the garden
Fronds awaken
wet
but not from weeping.
Corn
from the first day
made to stand tall and in a row.
Meleager, Monarch, Mariposa —
cousins
but no in-laws.
Possum
passes the woodpile.
What does Ringo care?
Ask the weeds
what they know
of privilege.
To crawl, to hiss,
to curl, to bite —
but not to be petted.
Onion examines chard:
“oh to be
naturally curly.”
Worms fear most
what wanders on the row
but can’t wiggle.
A seductive flutter
A quick kiss —
hummingbird.
One human year
is nine years to a dog.
The peach tree sags.
Vulture hangs wearily;
woodlands make no sound
waiting for the rain.
Hornet’s elegant nest —
a would-be winner
were there a contest.
Afternoon thunder —
groundhog returns to the burrow.
No raincoat.
Nightfall
A white-tailed doe
wants dinner.
Five minutes ago I was mildly aware that 6 o’clock local news was chattering and then I heard “Nine homicides in six days.” There is provocation for a poem.
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