The Apostrophe Blog
Here is another one of my old chestnuts as I call them—ditties I wrote when I was just taking up the pen and paper again almost twenty years ago and trying to re-learn what makes a good poem. Looking at these oldies but goodies again now, in 2024, I can see I would write them very differently now!
At the time, I was working with some prose material about the suicide of an old friend from whom I had become (to put it mildly) estranged. After I learned of his death, and got a copy of his extensive suicide note from a mutual friend, I journeyed to Edmonds, Washington to see where he had died. I walked the beach where his sister, after dealing with the mess he left behind, tossed his cremains in a cardboard container shaped like a vintage Roseville vase.
“Remembering Gravity” chronicles the details of before and after including an incident that led to our falling out in the first place. It won second place in the Free Verse category of the Oregon Poetry Association’s Fall 2007 contest and was published in their print anthology, Verseweavers, in 2008. It was also included in my poetry chapbook, The Hours of Us.
Remembering Gravity
I remember driving to the hospital that night.
You opened the door as the car took a corner,
and you threatened to jump.
According to Aristotle, there’s no effect
without cause, no motion without force;
all things weighted move skyward
in pursuit of their proper place.
I go to the shore where your sister said,
you, mixed with the ashes of two dead dogs,
without ceremony, were dumped.
I wait until no one’s watching and toss
a green glass bottle into the water
with lines by Neruda inside.
Brahmagupta said
it’s the nature of earth to attract bodies
as the nature of water is to flow.
The bottle floats, wobbles, cycles on its side
out to a couple in a kayak
before a new wave catches and flips it
upright within their reach.
That night, the highway air fanned hatred
through me until I dared
the power of centrifugal force,
the physics of a body in motion to stay in motion,
to go ahead—pull you out.
The public domain image above is of a message in a bottle sent by a sailor at Joint Task Force Guantanamo, Cuba. It taken by Sgt. Emily Greene of the U.S. Army.
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.
- The Individuality of a Poetry Signature - September 12, 2024
- Published Online after Being in Print: “And I will tell you a story” - September 5, 2024
- Oregon Poetry Association Honorable Mention for a Prose Poem - September 2, 2024
