Flow

I sit in my shaded garden, watching
the koi and goldfish feed. The house
is closed against this heat, plantation
shutters pulled across the windows.

Every week my aunt baked two cakes
in the wood stove, one with the yolks,
one with the whites. Angel-food cake,
sponge cake. Sue cut off her fingertip

fixing the well pump. Grandma's street
ended in the lagoon, swampy and dark.
Two blocks down was the stone bridge.
When she was seven, the girl next door

climbed that bridge and stepped off.
They called it an accident. Everyone cried.
Then the Cities, split by the great river,
crowded and loud, wet air that paled the days.

Another town, the smell of fish, boats
docked at the inlet, swaying and creaking.
Cedars and rhododendrons, houses closed
in on themselves. Lilacs. Roses.

The Inland Passage, whales breeching.
Wooden houses climbing the mountains.
Crab pulled up from the sea. Rain.
Ravens, eagles, great blue herons. Rain.

I eat cherries from Flathead Lake.
They are sharp and sweet, cold
from the refrigerator. Just a few
steps away, the Clark Fork climbs

its banks. Somewhere to the south,
it meets the river of my childhood.
The air smells of forest fires. Later
I'll make a devil's food cake.

  

   read write prompt #86: by celebrity guest poet dorianne laux

Comments

[Dana]

Beautiful. I mean, really wonderful. It's been a great week this week at RWP. That Dorianne knows how to get the poetry party started, does she not?

How did it feel to write this? I know some of the prompts are ones you go after and have several takes on. Did this one just spill out?

[Mark's Notebook]

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this. I agree with Dana. There have been so many wonderful pieces shared from this prompt...

[Derrick]

A lot of memories here; sights and sounds, tastes and smells. Very evocative.

[sbpoet]

Dana, I worked hard on this one, and I'm not actually happy with it. Too prosaic, and too long.

Mark & Derrick: thanks for coming by, & I'm glad you enjoyed it -- even if it's not my best!

[Nathan]

Fantastic -- I love everything about it. Your line breaks are wonderful, like the one after "fingertip." The connection between landscape and human life is wonderfully painted.

[wayne]

great read...and nice response to prompt

[angie]

I like how all the images spill out, like it happens when a person is remembering. The food images are especially striking and they tie it all together for me.

[one more believer]

what a wonderful post...it is a rare piece so vivid as if we are there and can see everything you have experienced....