Poems transcend time and place. They punch right to the heart, empathetically and brutally, and they tend to leave an indelible imprint on my memory. I've often turned to poetry to express all the inner angst I can't quite put into words myself.
Once again, I'm finding myself drawn to images, phrases that capture pieces of how I feel. So, over the next four days, several poems by Canadian poet Alison Pick from her two incredible collections of poetry: Question & Answer, published in 2003, and The Dream World, published in 2008.
I'm a person who tends to live in the past more often than not. I rehash conversations, relive memories, refute arguments that are days, weeks, even months old; all of this, of course, happens inside my head. I can only hope that in doing so, I learn lessons from the things that have already happened. I have perspective now that I couldn't have dreamed of having before; I have developed tenacity and determination that can only be chalked up to experience. I have shed some of my idealistic tendencies, losing them to the harsh reality of failure.
How perfectly this first poem encapsulates my former idealism. How hopefully I attempted to weather a giant storm, yet sadly lacked the necessary means. How glad I am for the reminder now that rising water and raging winds are real.
How ready am I this time?
Writing Poetry
She sewed him a boat out of birchbark
and thread. A gift in the flow
of her steady affection, one moment freighted
with many. Perfect
and useless, it sat on their shelf,
unfit to weather the rising of water.
To small to stand up to anything
real. Now it seems
a magical vessel, able to travel
upstream, back in time. A tiny
reminder: the heart slips its anchor.
She's glad she has something to keep.
Alison Pick
from The Dream World
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