I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve got Scrivener all loaded and revved up, but where do I begin? Not wanting to let it paralyze me, I’ve switched over to this site, my new Old Faithful.
Eavan Boland’s poems called to me yesterday when I was working on the homework assignment for the Jung Archademy discussion group. The book we’re diving into is The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdock. I didn’t get a chance to share with the group the poem I had chosen, but I felt like it was time to give Boland her due, so I replaced Ledger by Jane Hirschfield in the morning lineup with Boland’s New Collected Poems.
I’m going to go ahead and type up two of them. First, the one I wanted to share, which is just the final part of a three-part poem titled, “Suburban Woman: A Detail.”
III
Setting out for a neighbour’s house
in a denim skirt,a blouse blended in
by the last light,I am definite
to start with
but the light is lessening,
the hedge losing its detail,
the path its edge.Look at me, says the tree.
I was a woman once like you,
full-skirted, human.Suddenly I am not certain
of the way I came
or the way I will return,
only that something
which may be nothing
more than darkness has begun
softening the definitions
of my body, leavingthe fears and all the terrors
of the flesh shifting the airs
and forms of the autumn quietcrying remember us.
She’s fading into the darkness, a notion that captivates me, and then, this evening, I again come across Adam Duritz chatting with Rick Beato, and I’m cueing up “Round Here” on Youtube. Those first lines: “Step out the front door like a ghost / Into the fog where no one notices / The contrast of white on white”
When I was younger, it was “The Invisible Woman”: some piece that got passed around via email and Yahoo! groups, and it was about being a mom: the one nobody can do without and the one nobody seems to see. But this is different; this is the Disappearing Woman, and she’s me or I or who knows: the grammar, the idea, the person. Who am I? Who was I? It seems to me that I once knew, or at least, never imagined that I didn’t.
It took nearly 30 years of marriage to “soften my definitions” to the point at which the young woman pictured in the silver frame had become someone I could vaguely remember, if I tried hard enough.
Oh, but trying hard enough. If there’s one thing I am good at, it’s trying hard, and I am okay with that—as long as my efforts stand a chance, and I’m not just playing some sociopath’s rigged game. But for how long was I doing exactly that?
How about a poem of my own now? Boland’s other one can wait. Here. I found this one, or a fraction of one, maybe, from January 23rd:
Once Upon a Time
She tells me it’s time to heal,
and I buy the paper and pick up my pen,
ready for formulas or lessons or something solid.
I get none.
So, I begin with a step and inhale all the hope in the air.
I’ve practiced on a treadmill, but not faced the real road until now.
It climbs right away and I pant for breath, ready to turn back
and turn the key in the lock of my cage. It is safe there.
But I cannot stay.
A new life calls to me, and I must keep my head.
