When I step out of the car
Into the burning summer sunshine
A cool breeze rushes across my face
Here in this plain of vases sunk into the earth
Rows of silk flowers and plastic stems
Erupt from bronze colored urns
There is no sound save the shush of cars
On the highway near the entrance
No insects. No birds. No frogs
It’s as if this tiny gathering place of the dead
has been forsaken by all life
Save for those who come to switch out faded polyester flowers
For gaudy bright ones, which will also fade in the hard sun
There is nothing but the strange breeze that accompanies me
As I dutifully take the old, weather-worn blooms from my parents’ vase
And replace them, arrange them, loop them back upon themselves
Bending metal stalks that will never look natural
Spread them out, then shove them back into a bunch
And when I contemplate the empty cemetery
The green manicured grass, the wild colors of the artificial flowers
And wonder whether this is how my father wanted to be remembered
Only the gentle breeze answers me
Flowing over the graves, touching the flowers with tendril fingers
So I’m feeling a little maudlin today, and I noticed how colorful the cemetery was when I last visited my Dad and Stepmom’s grave. I have always dabbled in poetry, and I always seem to choose ordinary moments in time to write about. But isn’t that what art is about – Life?
We’re often told that Art Imitates Life or even Life Imitates Art. So the two concepts are intrinsically entwined. How better to record fleeting sensory impressions and feelings than with a short verse highlighting a single contemplative moment? I don’t know about you, but my mind is a riot of nonlinear thoughts and memories every minute of the day. Taking a few seconds to jot down a record of the process is both healing and soul-satisfying.
We all process our feelings in different ways. Mine is often with poetry. There’s a truism in musical theater that when a character feels too much emotion to speak, they sing. For me, when my feelings overwhelm my writing, poetry results. And I feel that is true for a lot of writers. I’ve recently subscribed to the Daily Poetry app which has a widget that sits right on the homescreen to my phone and gives me a new dose of poetry every day. It’s been wonderful filling my head with rhyme and meter (although I’m mostly a free verse writer myself these days), beautiful imagery and mundane events that other poets set down.
I have a character, Jimenez, in my Klockwerk Kraken collection of novellas, who is also a fan of poetry. I wrote a few snippets to put in that story as well as including one by a favorite poet, Rumi. Sometimes you just need a few beautiful words to make a scene come alive. And perhaps Jimenez had it right after all. Poetry is “small words with big meanings.”
