This Is Who I Am

To be a writer

is like being two atoms that dance with one

Hydrogen playing with Oxygen

moving with scintillating, procreating fluidity

a disciplined yet unchained pattern

until the quadrille

slows down

and stands

with hardly a breath

transforming into crystals,

each one a unique expression

of water being frost

rock being mountain

or wind being ripples on river’s skin

like human being body, emotion and thought

like me, turning molecules of mind into words

dancing the rounds and rhythms,

pulling sounds and meanings like taffy;

stretching, tempting, and loving the sweetness

of post-rain petrichor, poetry and story-being-born.

Discipline is all it takes;

it’s only a matter of focused attention.

All the while my faucet drips

a metronome playing Chopin’s Funeral March.

It echoes against the cold hard tub: Dum Dum da Dum,

Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum…

A suitable march for somber scenes

or penned phrases that smirk.

Do you remember Mommy’s funeral?

When we weren’t supposed to laugh?

Suddenly, simple things such as a lady’s hat

black and wide

a saucer-shaped ride for snow,

turned resignation and sorrow into nonsense,

amplified our sighs into unstoppable giggles,

and hoots escaped from our throats

bouncing off gravestones

and falling like stars of grief-relief.

We stood there, two children hugging themselves

trying to appear with socially-acceptable sadness

behavior more suited to the tragic event.

We failed.

Laughter, glorious laughter

like a toad released in a classroom of nuns

shocked the mourners and freed us.

Mourners shifted in confusion

at our emancipation.

Surely we weren’t glad that Mommy died?

No more bed pans

No more sheets and laundry

Not one more morning of waking up wondering

if she’s dead

or still dying…

Is that faucet still dripping?

It is.

Handel’s Water Suite No 2

now skipping like tigger in my tub

bouncy, boisterous and… happy.

In the yellow pages under Plumbers, I find Scotty.

I call and ask him for a quote.

He knows my rented cottage

I forgot that this is an island,

a community of small and intimate

where no sparrow falls without everyone knowing

just as no bath leaks

nor pipes crack

nor drain becomes clogged

without Scottie fixing it

I need more than a washer, he says,

to stop this rhythmic dripping that disturbs my work.

Receiving his quote, I discover that words come cheap

but plumbing doesn’t.

His repair will cost me a whole chapter

including the edits.

Handel’s happy notes begin to grow on me.

Staying in the moment, I hear another pattern

an attitude – a practice of choice – an epiphany.

A drip or a sound need not be my nemesis

instead it is a setting; fire and fuel for my work.

I listen to the rhythms, inhale them, accept them into my being

Words commune and bond with water

dancing the dance of intention

while I, in glorious birth,

exist again and again and again

bonder of sights, sounds, heart and soul

in crystal-forming discipline

becoming what I already am

and so

I write

~

Submitted to Poetry Palace’s Thursday Rally:

http://promisingpoetsparkinglot.blogspot.com/2012/01/agreement-for-poets-rally-week-60.html

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