This poem isn't a sleepy orchard town in the 1950's,
small wartime cottages surrounded by
miles and miles of apple orchards,
flanked by a huge lake, and rounded hills,
blue in winter, dry and brown, dotted with sage brush
through the long, hot summers.
This poem isn't a freckle-faced
thirteen year old girl in 1960,
her head full of dreams, trying to survive
in a house full of alcohol and violence,
being shaped even as she dreamed
of escape, the cacophony inspiring
her lifelong quest for peace.
This poem isn't that innocent time
when skies were blue, and no one knew
about the ozone, when big trucks lumbered
down the dusty streets spraying DDT
(even on the playing children)
to kill mosquitoes. Those days
we thought would last forever,
following each other
in comforting sameness; when stability
and peace were Grandma's house,
and growing up meant life would just
get better.
This poem is a freckle-faced old woman,
watching the planet she loves revolt against
what we have done to her since then
in storm and flood and fire; the animals
all disappearing; poles melting,
earth tilting, trying to cleanse itself
of us, to shake us off.
Long life means trading
halcyon remember-when dreams
for the certain knowledge that
we're burning our house down.
I had not expected earth grief to be
the single biggest grief I own.
What we love the most, we lose.
I traded apple trees for old growth
and the sea. My worst fear:
that everything I ever loved
will yet be lost to me.
for Brendan at earthweal: the natural forces that shape us.
Your poem reminds me that life always presents challenges. I know that freckle faced girl went through a lot - good and bad - that shaped her. So sad that when things should be peaceful, grief is not for personal demise, but for the demise of humanity.
ReplyDeleteI love how you wrote this Sherry. A little biography mixed with concerns for the planet.
I always thought my story was a blend of history and mystery (the Brendan mask keeps it from the too personal). This story here keeps the same border tenuous, strange, wild and difficult. Whose house was under siege? What peace can we find that is separate from the world's? Important questions, friend ...
ReplyDeleteThis was lovely and so heart felt. Thank you for allowing us to walk into you past.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a heartfelt lament Sherry: from the sad tale of a childhood fraught with alcohol and violence inspiring a 'lifelong quest for peace' to the current days of lost innocence. I remember as a child there was a lot of talk about 'global warming' before it had been given a PR job and became the less-ominous, more natural-sounding 'climate change.' There was a lot of talk, and very little walk. Now there is a little walk but nowhere near enough.
ReplyDeleteAnother autobiographical poem that felt as if it was wrapped around me like a blanket, Sherry. What a lovely place to grow up in, but what a difficult teenagehood. There was no alcohol in our South London flat, but there were anti-depressants and violence. I know what it’s like to dream of escape. We tend to think of the fifties and sixties as innocent times, but we know now that they were the beginning of the end for the planet as we thought we knew it. These lines made me cry:
ReplyDelete‘What we love the most, we lose.
I traded apple trees for old growth
and the sea. My worst fear:
that everything I ever loved
will yet be lost to me.’
I am always very moved by your childhood. I think your fears are very valid!
ReplyDeleteThe world gets larger and smaller at the same time. A beautiful reflection. (K)
ReplyDeleteWhat a desperately sad poem. I hope your worst fears don't come to pass. I wrote about this earlier this week in a poem I didn't link to Earthweal. You'll find it on my blog as the second last entry if you are interested. Suzanne of Mapping Uncertainty.
ReplyDeleteWe can ponder our lives, take pride in, or worry about, the details left behind, but our significance once we're gone comes down to one fine point - the mark we leave upon this land. Each of us, one after the other, until there is nothing to leave behind.
ReplyDelete