Wednesday's Child ...
Today is Saturday, 17 January 2009.
The old pocket door leading
Into the kitchen
Sticks again today.
After fifty years of
Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks,
Occasional refuge to cry,
"Don't come in!"
A door deserves a break.
Mayhap the track is worn,
Or the wheels which run in the track.
Probably take me two days,
Jostling and coaxing,
To return it to normal.
Reminds me of me these days,
Since you died.
I haven’t moved any of your things.
I can’t move any of your things.
I turn a corner and see something, anything,
And my wheels depart the track.
I could burn this house down,
Everything in it,
And the memories and wounds would never perish:
Memory won’t burn.
The old pocket door leading
Into the kitchen
Sticks again today.
After fifty years of
Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks,
Occasional refuge to cry,
"Don't come in!"
A door deserves a break.
Mayhap the track is worn,
Or the wheels which run in the track.
Probably take me two days,
Jostling and coaxing,
To return it to normal.
Reminds me of me these days,
Since you died.
I haven’t moved any of your things.
I can’t move any of your things.
I turn a corner and see something, anything,
And my wheels depart the track.
I could burn this house down,
Everything in it,
And the memories and wounds would never perish:
Memory won’t burn.
posted by HH at 8:09 PM
3 Comments:
You speak the sorrowful truth; but would we have it any other way?
I think this poem works because, for once, I managed to delay the main point for a while, sort of slip up on it, instead of, as it were, slapping readers in the face with a dead fish, and then keeping beating them over the head with it.
Wow, HH, what an eloquent response. And to think one of your readers was chastised by another for the inelegant phrase "flapping your gums."
Although you have taken a little of the magic away, I agree with your analysis of why the poem works. It also works because it expresses a profound and heartbreaking truth, one which many of us have sadly and regretfully experienced. Memory won't burn to ashes and disappear, but it is the perfect vehicle for burning the soul. And for feeding the soul.
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