Memories and bad poetry
My daughter was looking for a cardboard box to use for a craft and so she emptied a box of memorabilia I had up in our attic, coming back downstairs with our wedding program, an English paper I wrote on the irony of Julius Caesar in college (A-/B+) and my diary from my junior year of college. I paged through it, amazed (well, not really...) at the endless angst and over what? Boys, mainly. And not even boyfriends. And also over school, and plays (I majored in theatre) and the purpose of my life and life in general and oh... everything. Reading it I wished I could go back and tell my twenty year old self not to worry so much, but perhaps in twenty years I'll want to tell my current 38-year-old self the same thing. The human condition lends itself to worry, to wonder, to asking the big questions (and college especially lends itself to that!!)
Anyway I thought I'd post a poem I wrote in my diary; not because it's any good, but because it shows just how angst-ridden and grappling with life's questions I was. I wrote it, incidentally, during the class on Shakespeare where I got the A-/B+. Not sure what that says about anything... but I do have a distinct memory of writing sonnets about boys instead of listening to the lecture.
While Blank Eyes Stare
If I were able to perceive--one
crying stab, just asking
"Please, why?"
Reflected in my own blank face, lips poised
To sigh
And then lament with gentle, impatient murmurs those fated
To die.
If I could understand the darkness that
In dense, streaming clouds
Will cover
Dazing, draining, damaging all those
Aspiring to the realm
Of lover,
Under it in one short, silent crack their
Just-drawn breaths
Are over.
On blinking face or stilled pantomime these
Sticks are seen, limbs twisted
In fear
So far from our own padded comfort--in sympathy
We cannot survive
A tear
But sigh, with placid sadness, gliding on to other,
whispering
"Oh, dear."
While blank eyes stare, pleading for salvation.
So amidst the sprawling mess of that, I clearly was thinking some fairly big thoughts. I'm glad my writing has improved a bit in the last twenty years! But the angst is still there, in my books :)
posted by Kate Hewitt at
Thursday, July 19, 2012
And you thought all that angst was wasted. It's actually quite an interesting poem. Seeds of greatness there. Way better than the one I just posted on Valerie Parv's blog .
Thanks Fiona! I do like the idea that inspired the poem, which was how indifferent we can become to images on TV of war and violence, but I think I got lost in all the words :) Now I'm off to check out your poem...