What Links Us
My neighbour is playing his music.
My neighbour is playing his music.
This afternoon our windows
are closed against the heat
yet still I hear the heavy pulse
of the drum, of my throbbing blood,
my heartbeat, everyone's heart,
across our dividing courtyard.
This morning I swam
in the hydrotherapy pool.
There was my old friend Irwin,
stretching his herniated discs.
'I can't do this in the river,' he said,
and I remembered all of us swimming
with him in his river, years ago.
At Christmas I went back
to the town I grew up in.
The hospital there, where I was born
and my little brother was born,
was also where my Nana, who'd held me
in her lap, died. I was four.
in her lap, died. I was four.
Now I am 74. I still love her.
The handsome lizard in my kitchen —
how did that get in? — didn't scurry away
but kept very still. I opened the back door
and fetched the broom. Could I
manoeuvre it out? I don't like
killing the creatures. Oh, but this one
was dead already, a gift from the cat.
Do I put these things before you
as question, answer, or neutral description?
Not to instruct you how to think,
let me just tell you what I imagine:
all the trees of the world messaging each other,
their roots connected through earth
and their branches sharing the air.
This was written in 2014 as part of a renga (a sequence of linked or 'chained' poems) with three other poets. I'm re-posting it here and sharing it at Poets and Storytellers United's Writers' Pantry #14, to see if it can stand alone, out of the original context.
Do I put these things before you
ReplyDeleteas question, answer, or neutral description? - absolutely love that... and now am thinking of every line I've ever written!
Ha ha, I knew you would like that bit, my philosophical friend!
DeleteI love all these links :the throbbing hearts, the pool and the river, the town with brother and nana, the still lizard made dead by the cat and Love the last 3 lines how trees are connected through roots and the air
ReplyDeleteDuring weekdays, I would love to hear my neighbour playing music! The eerie silence of the pandemic is deafening, and I would love some human contact. A hydrotherapy pool would be wonderful – or a lizard, but we don’t have them in the UK. There was a deer in the garden earlier, Mojo, one of our cats, is sitting on the back of my chair, and I can see the budding willow busily messaging!
ReplyDeleteYour poem has reminded me that there is life all around me, Rosemary.
I'm glad of that, Kim. Thank you.
DeleteSo much content, brought together perfectly. Though I winced a little at 'herniated' :)
ReplyDeleteOne of the problems of getting older is that we start looking back instead of forward . I find I am doing this a lot now with my writing about my childhood or romantic pieces rather than limping around with a walking stick or wondering whether I will get the virus.
ReplyDeleteWell, it's nice to have good memories to look back on!
DeleteI am so touched by your poem, Rosemary especially the closing stanza! I believe as Poets we communicate through verse both knowingly and unknowingly.💘
ReplyDeleteIt appears to be working, then. I'm glad it has been so well received.
DeleteA very comforting poem.
ReplyDeleteYour imagination has certainly gone to wondrous places in this poem, Rosemary. May we be like the trees of the world: connected, massaging each other into wholeness and light.
ReplyDeleteI love the entire poem, the way it progresses, the way it shows how connection works. The last few lines of the third stanza will stay with me--there is just so much power in love that transcend all things, even death.
ReplyDeleteWe're up here on this hill, several miles outside the village and, unlike My Beloved Sandra (the more social one) I'm happy to amplify my natural Hermit existence, so that we may both continue to exist. Silence is golden. There will be time for dancing later.
ReplyDelete"Iwas four.
ReplyDeleteNow I am 74. I still love her."
I am easily absorbed into those lines. Can say the same for my grandfather
Happy Sunday
Much💗love
Loved the sense of presence in these, the connections and the sense of life.
ReplyDeleteThis is lovely, Rosemary, and most certainly stands alone. I too love that last stanza threading it all together. And quite right about the trees. Have you read The Hidden Life Of Trees by Peter Wohlleban? Fascinating and inspiring. Also, The Overstory by Richard Powers, a book everyone should read.
ReplyDeleteHalfway though Overstory. Might be time to reread The Hidden Life. (Smile.)
DeleteI really like that last stanza, the connection of all things, and the stanza about still loving your Nana. :)
ReplyDeleteHow slender sometimes are those connecting threads. Almost invisible, except to the ones who who feel the pulse of their loving presence.
ReplyDeleteWe are all more connected now than during the days of our youth, Rosemary. The question is, how much of the real truth are we getting through that pipeline?
ReplyDeleteBeautiful - wonderful contemplative lines in this. I imagine it being read aloud (in that lovely voice you have) very softly and gently - like the delicate threads of a life lived, that you have woven with your words.
ReplyDeleteAnd we are like trees messaging our poetry to each other.
ReplyDeleteOh, what a lovely thought!
Deletei have yet to try a renga, won't know if i have the stamina and discipline for it.
ReplyDeleteYour poem, taken as a whole is lovely, as little snapshots of daily life. Most could be taken as a stand-alone short poem by themselves, like the ones about your Nana and the lizard. There is love and compassion and friendship in the poems.
There were four of us in this renga, and we rotated for a year, each taking the same week of every month (based entirely on our personal schedules and convenience) – which meant it wasn't so very arduous. It was actually quite exciting.
DeleteThere is something to the trees. They do indeed talk to each other and maybe if we listen in our deep silence, we might hear them. Thanks for sparking that thought, Rosemary.
ReplyDeleteThis comes across as a stream of consciousness. Our idle thoughts are well penned, I think, and lead our muse to surprising places!
ReplyDeleteYes, it was like that – and I decided to write it that way, too.
DeleteWhat links us. The title of your poem alone makes one pause, ponder and acknowledge that something powerful, whether we know it or not links all living things. Trees messaging each other bear witness.
ReplyDeleteOh, I love your ending...I wonder at times what others will feel and think when they read my work, other times it is all about me writing my way out of things that trouble me.
ReplyDelete"Do I put these things before you
ReplyDeleteas question, answer, or neutral description?" - wow , such a perfect write! loved it.
Thank you!
Delete