Learning to be prepared

This needs work but would appreciate your thoughts on whether this form holds water - no pun intended (okay, pun totally intended).

Fact: Drowning victims are dangerous,

deadly.

True Story: Father, 32, dies from bite to throat

inflicted during failed rescue

of toddler from family pool.

Instructions: Approach from below.

The difference between you and them

is that you are not drowning.

Maintain this difference at all costs.

Lesson: A 20lb weight sunk at the deep end

approximates your husband's body

should his lungs become filled with water.

There is a trick in using the shoulder to bear the weight.

There is a trick in keeping one hand free at all times.

Practice: Keeping head space above water,

smooth, constant motion below in progressively faster circles.

Be prepared to suspend breathing.

Be prepared to submerge.

Chattanooga, Houston Museum, 2003

I realize that the person who inspired this poem has the (relatively) high potential of coming across it... and if she does, first - thank you - and second - sorry, I probably should have asked you first (but the mention is fairly benign, right?). Also, I have no good explanation for why I happened to be thinking about (and subsequently writing about) this particular moment, but it came to me on the subway during rush-hour, so it was likely a willed out-of-body experience.

Liza, I remember the day your cat died.

On the steps of Anna’s preserved Victorian—

laden with courting lamps, scrimshaw

where I was installed, smiling, in the parlor and you

bent at the desk, by the second floor window—

I held you so tight I could smell how you smelled like the ocean

in your sadness.

I could feel the dampness of your back through your cotton shirt,

Damp from the hot river air

that yellowed the paper, that threatened the Toby jugs,

the lusterware—copper, pink, yellow and silver.

We could no more keep it out than it could keep us in,

how we seeped through each other, through the glass and the wooden staircase,

us and the air, pressing to get in and to get out of that space so full and empty.

I could, as we stood pressed together, feel your heart in your chest

pulled to me, the single other living thing in the house of the dead.

Brushing off the rust - An Introduction

I write every day. Some days, all day long. Chances are though, unless you are extremely wealthy, own a foundation, or sit on a corporate philanthropy board - you probably have not and will not see anything of note from me on paper (and if you did, chances are it would be signed by someone else). That's okay. I like what I do. I like to think it does some good. And, it lets me use what I've got and what I like to make (a little bit) of a living.

But twice in the past month or so I've been reminded, in a pointed way, that I used to write differently than I do now. I used to write different things for different audiences.

The first was a message from the daughter of my 11th grade English teacher, the supervisor of the high school literary magazine that I edited and contributed fantastically embarrassing works of teenage poetry to. It was the 90s - the days of the "poetry slam" - which, you may or may not wish to remember, depending on whether you ever participated in one. Anywho, this young woman (who somehow is no longer eight but is in fact married and working for the National Archives) asked me if I would contribute a piece to the final edition of "Writers Block" (yes, that's what we called our little rag) upon her mother's retirement. I said sure. Of course I did. I wondered how a proposal on protecting environmental flow written for a major bank would translate into that format. Would they get a kid from the advanced art class to illustrate it? Would they include the budget? Hmmm.

The second was striking up an acquaintance with a fairly renowned author and poet who, after a couple glasses of wine and an email exchange, agreed to read something of mine and offer his thoughts. I suppose I could have sent him a description of what my organization could do with a $25,000 donation, but somehow I don't think that's what he had in mind. Me either, actually. Really, I was hoping for some kind of a sign - a reading- on whether I still "had it." (Assuming I ever did). "It" being - what? - the juice, I guess. The touch, the ability, to use words deliberately and creatively to make art.

I was in a meeting with a colleague on Friday and I made the analogy between writing a good donor report and writing a good poem. It's about being succinct and specific. Choosing a very well-defined window into something much larger, bringing to life--for the reader--what is outside the frame, just beyond view. I don't know if that's right, but I think there's something to it.

This is all a rather long preamble to a fairly straight forward objective. I'd like to start writing creatively again. Because I think it will help me be better at what I do - sure. But more because I miss it, plain and simple. Maybe that instinct has become a shriveled, white, floppy appendage - but damn it, it's still attached. I'd like to pump some blood into it and see what it can do.

The blog format is intentional (what else could it be? Oops, I accidentally wrote a blog? duh). What I mean is, well - remember my allusion to the poetry slams of yore? That's how I cut my teeth in this craft. For me, writing has always been a public act... I can't do it in the absence of a reader (or at least a potential reader). So I hope this finds a few, who are will to watch me stumble around for a while as I try to find my legs. I hope you'll let me know what you think. And then, I hope you'll offer me a book contract (just kidding).

That's long enough (too long, probably) for a first post. The next one will be nothing but poem. I promise. I even have one lined up. I'm gonna try to stick with this, so I hope you'll stick with me. Thanks.

Jessie