Walkabout
i haven't been writing all that much this past month, but there is some news to report: I'm going to have a broadside of 8poems about my daughter released this month. The release party and reading is at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St. between J and K, Sacramento at 7:30, Wed Mar. 14--I'll be featured alongside Steve Williams, who is having a chapbook released as well. So I thought I'd break my usual policy of late and post a poem about Nora here. She's nearly all I write about these days, I must admit, but I don't want the blog to become monotonous or saccharine, so I've been seeking other themes when blogging.
Her Walks
Outside at last,
at any cost,
she ambles purposefully,
dressed
for a day twice as windy
and half as warm.
Persuaded to let go
of my hand
and avoid the street,
she's still determined
to cling too tightly,
or else to climb
each set of steps,
accost every bush
and pry loose
every piece of gum
from here to the corner.
She falls, and then
picks up sticks and rocks
as she wends
her endless way
on the return
and roundabout trip
which now begins-
half an hour
and one whole block
from home.
I know I should supplement this poem by posting a cute picture (of which there are hundreds) but I don't have the web knowledge to do so. I can offer a url with a picture of her, though: http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d58/katewashington/pageturner.jpg
Her Walks
Outside at last,
at any cost,
she ambles purposefully,
dressed
for a day twice as windy
and half as warm.
Persuaded to let go
of my hand
and avoid the street,
she's still determined
to cling too tightly,
or else to climb
each set of steps,
accost every bush
and pry loose
every piece of gum
from here to the corner.
She falls, and then
picks up sticks and rocks
as she wends
her endless way
on the return
and roundabout trip
which now begins-
half an hour
and one whole block
from home.
I know I should supplement this poem by posting a cute picture (of which there are hundreds) but I don't have the web knowledge to do so. I can offer a url with a picture of her, though: http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d58/katewashington/pageturner.jpg
posted by Brad at 11:04 AM
1 Comments:
Starting her off with Joyce at a young age; I love it.
The sound in this poem, especially in the last stanza, works very nicely with the way we envision a young child walking. The short line lengths seem to "wend" themselves along in a sort of disequilibrium.
I especially like the sense of curiosity that we see, and the sense of the bigness of the world, of being "one whole block from home." It's difficult to see how big the world is once we grow up and can walk without stimbling, or climb steps without crawling up them like small mountains. We all seem to forget, along our "endless way," the smallness we once fulfilled.
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