Greetings! I've been followng along this month as the poets have been sharing this writing project and what an interesting, twisting journey this year's poem is on. Yesterday was Pat's turn at Writer on a Horse and today it's my turn to contribute a line to Irene Latham's 2015 Progressive poem.
How I arrived at my line:
After Pat’s riveting, “hidden sentries,” and “bitter taste of impulse” rushing into the fisherman’s lungs, my first thought was that this guy is in grave danger - he has to fight, breathe. But then I watched (of all things) the new Pandora jewelry Mother’s Day ad – the one where blindfolded children seek their own mothers from a line-up. Whether or not you appreciate the ad is a question for another venue – what struck me was that the children were using senses other than sight to connect with a close family member. And it started me thinking…What if? What if, in this danger, the fisherman’s senses become heightened? Since he’s been restrained, what if the girl comes back to help him? What if she can communicate with him through nothing more than the swish of her tail? What if the sentries weren’t out to harm him, but willing to help if only he would be calm? And my lines came into focus. Here they are:
Her flipper flutters his weathered toes
– Pearl’s signal –
Stop struggling.
The Sentinels will escort you
I decided to leave my line open-ended for Tricia to guide where she believes the poem needs to go.
Since this is a free verse narrative poem, I also decided to format it so that the organization of the words on the page compliment the meaning. Seeing it this way helped me focus on specific details and lively actions and phrases that help tell the story, and helped me choose my lines. Maybe the format will be different tomorrow when Tricia takes over, but for today I am enjoying the look of our poem along with the words and their meaning.
Here is the poem to date with my line at the bottom:
She lives without a net,
walking along the alluvium of the delta.
Shoes swing over her shoulder,
on her bare feet stick
jeweled flecks of dark mica.
Hands faster than fish swing
at the ends of bare brown arms.
Her hair flows,
snows
in wild wind
as she digs
in the indigo varnished handbag,
pulls out her grandmother’s oval
cuffed bracelet,
strokes the turquoise stones, and steps
through the curved doorway.
Tripping
on
her
tail
she
slips
hair first
down
the
slide…
splash!
She glides past glossy water
hyacinth to shimmer with a school of shad,
listens to the ibises
roosting in the trees
of the cypress swamp
an echo
of Grandmother’s words, still fresh
in her windswept memory;
“Born from the oyster,
expect the pearl.
Reach for the rainbow
reflection on the smallest dewdrop.”
The surface glistens, a shadow
slips
above her head, a paddle
dips
she reaches, seizes. She’s electric energy
and turquoise eyes.
Lifted high, she gulps strange air – stares
clearly into
Green pirogue, crawfish trap, startled
fisherman with turquoise eyes, twins
of her own, riveted on her wrist–
She’s swifter than a dolphin,
slipping away,
leaving him only
a handful
of memories
of his own
grandmother’s counsel:
“Watch for her.
You’ll have but one chance
to
determine—
to decide. Garner wisdom from the water
and from the pearl
of the past.”
In a quicksilver flash,
an arc of resolution, he
leaps
into the shimmering water
where hidden sentries restrain
any pursuit and the bitter taste
of impulse rushes
into his lungs.
Her flipper flutters his weathered toes
– Pearl’s signal –
Stop struggling.
The Sentinels will escort you
I'll look forward to tomorrow, when Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect adds her line.
Thank you, Irene, for such a fun project to contribute to during National Poetry Month, and to the poets who go where the words take them!
This week's Poetry Friday is being celebrated tomorrow with Renee LaTulippe at No Water River.
Thanks for stopping by!
Tamera WIll Wissinger
