Monday, April 5, 2010

Then Again, Maybe Not

Perhaps April isn't the best month to challenge myself to a daily-posting spree? The garden is going in and that takes most of my free time. I'm also trying to throw together a last minute wedding shower (by sheer force of will, it's going to be just lovely, I swear) and get ready for two of my dearest friends to visit. And, you know, it's April and just holding on to my sanity is a lot work some days. I don't have time to read a poem a day, much less the inclination to think about randomly selected verse winging its way through the ether. So we're letting go of the Poem-A-Day-Posting theme.

That said, this poem is lovely. Ms. Lerman's work has already earned a space on my shelves.


Small Talk
by Eleanor Lerman


It is a mild day in the suburbs
Windy, a little gray. If there is
sunlight, it enters through the
kitchen window and spreads
itself, thin as a napkin, beside
the coffee cup, pie on a plate

What am I describing?
I am describing a dream
in which nobody has died

These are our mothers:
your mother and mine
It is an empty day; everyone
else is gone. Our mothers
are sitting in red chairs
that look like metal hearts
and they are smoking
Your mother is wearing
sandals and a skirt. My
mother is thinking about
dinner. The bread, the meat

Later, there will be
no reason to remember
this, so remember it
now: a safe day. Time
passes into dim history.

And we are their babies
sleeping in the folds of
the wind. Whatever our
chances, these are the
women. Such small talk
before life begins

3 comments:

Cara said...

I'm also all about the poem-a-dayness of April--I get the emails from both Knopf and Poets.org--and this poem is definitely the best of the bunch so far this year. Lovely.

Debi Harbuck said...

I haven't seen the ones from Knopf, Cara; I'll have to look for that. I do agree this one is my favorite so far of all the ones sent from poets.org.

Lisa said...

Love that one.

There's also Poetry Daily and FSG has a daily poetry newsletter too. Because in my opinion there just ain't enough poetry in the world and that is that.