Okay, time for another soppy poem.
I am not much of a neat-freak, I have to admit. I’d like
to be – well, actually I’d just like someone else to come and clean my house as
fast as it gets messed up – which is pretty much daily. When we were kids and I shared a room with my
sister, she actually got to the point where she drew a line down the middle of
the room because she got sick of my messiness! But now that I’m a growed-up
Mummy, the job of chief bottle-washer & tidy-upper now appears to be mostly
mine (don’t get me started on my feminist principles!), so I have learnt to put
away after myself – and the 5 other people who live here, not to mention the cat, dog and bird who
consider themselves part of the family. I’m
betting for every parent out there, there is a time when the dust bunnies and
cut-out messes drive you mad, so some aspect of this poem may resonate. Trying
to keep my beliefs about mindfulness and presence in daily practice, this poem is
a reminder to myself about what is really important.
I have been having this on-going discussion with myself
and anyone else who will listen, ever since attending the Auckland Readers and Writers
festival, about what makes good writing? Is it just enough to ‘express yourself’
or should you actually have to connect with an audience, have something to say,
make a point, add to the reader’s life experience? I have to confess I just do
not ‘get’ some of the really famous stuff. Am I being obtuse, just not sophisticated
enough (both possibilities) or is the rest of the world as puzzled as I am, but
Emperor’s clothes syndrome is preventing from anyone else from saying anything?
Discussion welcome (Add a comment below)!
The essence of you
Sometimes I forget
The
essence of you
And I
get caught up
In the
lost shoes
The mislaid
jumpers
The
solitary jandal
as if
they were more important
in my
misplaced priorities.
Sometimes
I forget
The
essence of you
When I
see piles of crafty debris
Half-completed projects,
Half-completed projects,
paint
pots and staplers
Pages
of your spider-writing
Weaving
webs about the house
Paper
cutouts all over the freshly vacuumed floor
Leaving
a trail of destruction
In my
organized mind.
Sometimes
I forget
The
essence of you
When the
dust bunnies
under
your bed
taunt
me and laugh at me
As I
discover
discarded
underwear
they
have been hiding
From my
washed out thinking
Sometimes
I forget
the essence of you
the essence of you
as I
discover
that
rattling sound from the drier
was
your tooth
you had
put in your pocket
when it
came out at school
and
refused to put
under
your pillow
for the
tooth fairy
because
you “will not sell your body parts”
as I
sell my sanity
Sometimes
I forget
The
essence of you
As your
dinner plate tips
Food
flops to the floor
In a
splodge of spaghetti blob-inaise
And you
contritely
use the hand towel
to
clean it up
Leaving
a greasy shine
on the
just-washed lino
A smear
on my psyche
Sometimes
I forget
the
essence of you
When I
tuck you up in bed
a quick
cuddle, a kiss
My
tired body
aching
for the couch
numbing
TV
and a
cup of tea
and you
say
in your sleepy voice
“Mummy,
I don’t want to do things wrong”
And
suddenly
My
litany of sins
Washes
back over me
And I
think of all the items I have lost
The
things I have broken
The
chaos which commands my cupboards
the virtual warren of dust bunnies
vicariously
breeding under my bed
the
half-done projects
I have
been avoiding in my in-tray
And it’s
all I can do
To stop
myself saying
‘get
used to it, baby’.
Instead
I fight back the tears
And try
to come up with something profound
That
you can take away with you
On your
years
“If you
don’t make mistakes,
You
won’t learn, darling”
“We all
stuff up sometimes, sweetie,
it’s
part of being human”
or
maybe
a
clever quote
from Dr
Seuss
or
Einstein
(Were
they maybe
the
same person?)
But all
I can come up with,
As my
heart melts
Is that
nothing
is as
important
There
is nothing
I love
more
than
finding
strewn
about the house
the essence
of you
I love this and I love that I can hear your voice when reading this. I would love to hear YOU read this out loud, one day.
ReplyDeleteLovely poem.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your question, I think if a writer wants to share their writing with an audience they should make some effort to give the audience a reward. There's an implied contract when you put your writing out for public consumption - there's something in it for the reader. If it's just you expressing yourself without offering anything of value to the reader, keep it between yourself and your therapist.
In any case I don't get lots of stuff. Writing, art, music, philosophy. I tell myself it's the Emperor's invisible clothes (when it's probably just my philistinism showing).