A Sense of Doubt blog post #2045 - To Rebekah, on reading your poems - Writing Wednesday 2009.23

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2045 - To Rebekah, on reading your poems - Writing Wednesday 2009.23

41 Days
The days to election day counter.

Last week, I went a quest into my digital archive to find formal poems (sonnets, a sestina) that I wrote to share with my creative writing students.

I could not find those poems, and so I do not have digital versions of them.

I found this poem instead. I wrote it in 1994 after I met a woman and developed a huge crush on her. She shared her poems with me, and so I wrote a poem about reading her poems as I thought she was an excellent writer.

I have read and re-read the poem multiple times. I feel like I could rewrite it, but I am not sure what to do with it.

I like how the lines work and the images that they express. I feel I could fine tune those, and I am just not sure how to make that tuning happen.

One would think that such need for tuning would disincline me to share the poem. And yet, the whole purpose of sharing my old poems is meant to open the door to my less mature work and writing that would benefit from revision.

For Rebekah, the poet

While I read your poems,
your words
lick the inside of my head,
like water rings from stone's throw.

As I read,
I feel the same as when silky rain
that coasts through sky
touches my face.
It's like the edges of leaves
that draw along my skin as I move
through a thicket.
These feelings move something within me
with more force than stone.

And after reading your poems,
I cannot find sleep.
I hear stone falling on stone,
first one,
then another,
then an entire hill
as it fills a ravine,
thousands of flat, round stones,
smoothed and darkened
by time that never passes
but surrounds us, waiting.

And I want to echo back
the spell of your language,
but I cannot capture the ten thousand
things that it is.

My head fills with fevers
of wildflowers,
congesting with the smells of ditches
clinging to the back of my throat,
remaining,
like the last kiss before a departure.

After reading your poems,
I know the sounds hollowing
out their homes in the dark;
I know the time the rose
needs to sing itself open;
I know the name of the truth.

-- christopher tower
re: 9404.09 11:45




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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2009.23 - 10:10

- Days ago = 1909 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.