To hear the related 5-minute audio file that I uploaded today as my Morning Journal flash briefing for Alexa devices, please click on the play button:
The Past as Poetry
Gentle Giant, our favorite movers, arrived here in Sanibel on Monday with boxes of memories.
For various reasons, Darlene and I have had a ton of stuff in storage for the past year. When I began opening boxes in my study I found almost-forgotten poetry books and a slew of my journals.
Before the Kindle changed my reading habits, I bought about 50 poetry books 20 years ago while I working on a poetry MFA in the Bennington Writing Seminars.
Putting my hands on volumes by John Ashbery, W.S. Merwin, Stephen Dunn, Byron, Whitman et al was like exchanging hugs with old teachers and friends.
A parallel reunion took place with my journals, which date back to my teens. I pulled one at random this morning, from 1988, the fifth year of our marriage. Darlene and I were living at the base of Casper Mountain.
The entry for February 18th at 6:40 a.m. described the view overlooking the city as the sun rose: “The dawn separates the sky from the clouds and tells each piece what color it really is.”
To be honest, I dreaded opening one of those journals. The Later Me, as Ashbery titled a poem in his 2009 collection Planisphere
shrinks from encounters with the earlier one,
you know, that one. The one we don’t speak about
except occasionally between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
Indeed.
But, actually, I liked what I found in that entry 36 years ago. It was nice to revisit my writerly aspirations and to find how well my appreciation of Darlene has held up over the decades.
“I feel like a social cripple most of the time,” I confessed to my private pages. “I judge every encounter. How’d I do?”
How to get out of it?
I can maybe pick it up by osmosis from Darlene, because she is so good at it. Her conversations are like music. They flow effortlessly, with energy and warmth.
And here we are with a new year approaching, settling into our home in Sanibel for the third time, if you count our exile after Hurricane Ian.
My Lab, which is what I call this room, now contains my old friends, poets including one I still recognize who shares my name.
Much as I try to write The Earlier One out of the series, he keeps showing up again. Back by popular demand.
Wonderful entry. Thank you. MFA in Poetry at Bennington! No wonder!!