Unintentional Self-Centeredness

Allow me to tell you a semi-sad tale of blogging. I was wacked in the forehead by a brilliant essay idea during my 1:00 class, and although I didn’t forget what I was going to write about it (as I usually do when I am struck with an idea in the middle of the day), due to a change in my rehearsal schedule, I need to spend this hour reading The Iliad and not writing profundity (or an attempt at it). That is the short version of the sad, sad tale.

Hopefully that will also serve as an explanation as to why I am giving you a poem instead of a post. Following is the rough draft (note: rough draft) of the first poem for the poetry writing class I am taking this semester. It is “the list poem,” which is intended to be autobiographical. And so, diluted into this brief and imperfect poem is a condensed version of the story of my development from a maniac child into a maniac quasi-adult. I’m sorry that instead of a post about C.S. Lewis and man’s perceptions of reality you are getting perhaps the most self-absorbed poem I have ever written. I promise I’ll try to do better tomorrow. Honest.

Where I’m From

 

I am from pine needle palaces, knees scraped on dogwood tree parapets,

White blossom-banners afloat on the breeze, and the silence

That comes from the absence of engines.

 

I am from towers of books built of bright rainbow bricks,

Open in Mama’s white hands and poured out with a lullaby sound,

And from Daddy’s impressions of comical voices.

 

I am from dust motes in sunbeams on Saturday mornings;

Comics and cinnamon biscuits (the food of the gods)

And black lines of newsprint and pictures for words.

 

I am from histories told by the fireplace:

Grandfather limping from Normandy, grandmother’s dump truck,

 The Buttermilk Story and Mudley’s last breath.

 

I am from thick-cushioned theater seats in the darkness

While colorful characters call incantations, and visions of fantasy

Flitter and fly ‘cross the wide, curtained window.

 

I am from wanderings in the grey woods where

The murmuring streams sing a song while I whisper

The first humble lines of my own incantations.

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