"I'm Sorry I Put Them Words in Your Mouth..."

[psalm_onethirtyone]

Um. This is posting day, apparently. >_> Poetry this time. (I like writing love poems. Shhh.)

When we get old we don’t want more things to fill the house,
my mother says. I know
more certainly than I know most things
that my house, filled with every gift you ever gave me, is
the place I am happiest to come back to.
I think I am trying to fill your house with me, with pretty glass
for your table, with sweet-smelling soap
for your hands
and books I think you’ll read. I think
I am hoping to make your house
the place you most want to be when you are
missing me. I think
I am forgetting that you
love less tangible presents:
when we cook dinner together, or I let you take photographs of me, or
you don’t expect the letter I mail from school.
I think you’re not made for glass and soap:
you want kisses and the gold from bees instead
(but you are certainly
not going to refuse books).

The trouble is that I forget.
I forget and court you with objects
and it surprises me to tears when they
don’t make you as happy as they’d make me.

My mother says,
When we get old, we just want most of our days to be good ones.
We’re maybe quieter and we don’t walk
as freely as we used to.
We’d rather share a piece of chocolate than get a fancy bracelet.
I know
more certainly than I know
most things
that if we nourish ourselves from the same plate some afternoon,
if we get slow and fat together,
even my material heart would be satisfied with one hundredth part
of what I bring you in my forgetful moments.

When we get old, my mother says,
mostly we hope for love.
I think
we might be old now. Or maybe
we don’t have to be old at all.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grayswandir_/]

This is absolutely beautiful. I can't even choose which parts are the most poignant; the whole poem is just so... serenely expressive, hopeful and yet melancholy. To me it conveys a lot of ideas even beyond its main themes, which may not even be what you intended, but I really like it.

I'm actually not sure I'd ever read any of your poetry before. Which strikes me as sort of strange, now that I think about it. If you had a poetry tag, I'd go back and look for more posts. ;)

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

oh my look at that (http://stellae.dreamthoughts.org/category/poems/). >_> I appear to have a metric tonne.

Also, thank you--! I--like to blend real stuff with stuff I make up, so at least half of any given poem is always autobiography. I think that helps.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grayswandir_/]

So, I've been reading through your poems, and... I'm not actually sure what to say in order not to sound entirely trite, but you are really, really wonderful. Whenever I try to decide how to explain what I think of your writing, I wind up hating how technical I sound, praising the meter or the cadence or the use of imagery and parallel metaphors, which is all utterly beside the point. What I want to mean, I think, is that your poetry is beautifully visceral and vivid, and I am simply in awe of the emotion and sensuality of it. I'm used to writing of a more intellectual sort, more cynical and sarcastic, and I'm used to deconstructing things and arguing points of philosophy -- but this kind of poetry is different, doesn't need anybody else's opinion; it simply conveys a feeling, a meaning that isn't there to be argued about, or even believed, only to be expressed and understood. That's how I see it, anyway.

I'll be the first to admit I know next to nothing about emotion, and will never, ever be able to do what you do, or even understand how you do it; but I'm sensible enough of it to be appreciative, anyway. And, as you can see, rather inarticulate. I hope you do publish someday; I rarely buy books of poetry, and never buy books of modern poetry -- but I certainly would make an exception for yours.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

*flails*

I. I don't know what to say--! I mean, thank you so much, thank you so much, and I--buh.

Thank you.