The Apostrophe Blog
Photo by Gunnar Ries
So many of us look back, take stock, try to evaluate just what we have spent our days on in the living of this life. This has been a fertile subject for poetry for ages as well. In Summer 2015, VoiceCatcher published my poem, “How I Wasted My Life“ in their online issue. It’s a response to the final line of James Wright’s much-anthologized poem, “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota” —: “I have wasted my life.” It is now the final poem in my newest poetry manuscript, Learning to See, too.
The photograph above by is of rock salt production at Katwe Salt Lake in Uganda. I feel like it perfectly captures the final line of my poem: Under a vast sky, split.
How I Wasted My Life
One leaf caught
In the fishing line that holds
The bird feeder high
Above a high-wired red squirrel’s reach.
Two webs laced in morning
Bright out the mudroom door.
Whiff of grass in the midst of
Mowing and cloud’s cover returned.
Rain: vertical, horizontal, three-dimensional, wet.
A silver balloon and its lift
Past the window-box geranium pink against
Blackening green, the leaves, this brood-gray light.
One more alder leaf caught in one more
Web spinning,
Rain meets wind then
Hail falls.
All hail,
Late afternoon
After downpour,
Sun and the drops on the screen,
How they crystal, refract sublime.
All this becoming so late —
Too late? No, everlasting
Now — the only-ever
Truth. I am
Wandering, home by dusk.
Under a vast sky, split.
Interests: Reading, writing, not arithmetic. The art and craft of poetry. Photography. Vegetable and flower gardening especially heirloom bulbs and dahlias. Movies in real theatres. Theatre on real stages. Art in real galleries. Crossword puzzles and, of course, Wordle. Singer-songwriters like Aimee Mann and Patti Griffin. All kinds of music especially 1930s jazz. Venice, Italy! The Dude abides.
- Publication News: Margie, the Journal of American Poetry - July 24, 2024
- There are very few books whose titles begin with the letter X… - July 16, 2024
- A fun alternative to the traditional author bio… - July 7, 2024
