I am not suffering.
Seventy-two degrees
the pond is flocked with widgeons,
mergansers, a blue heron.
Children are laughing at the sun
in their eyes and collecting
early childhood on their tongues.
I am steeping in everything-solved.
Please don’t worry about me
I had a substantial lunch: drone policies,
universal background checks, common
chemicals’ effects on vaccines,
economic war, nuclear provocation
looming. It’s time I got back to work:
mowing grass, removing locks,
changing light bulbs, aligning
perspective in my viewfinder.
Very nice Jane, though you threw me in the middle, but that is easy to do.>KB
The commonsense center of everyday activities amid the hyper-sensational ad-sponsored fears of the day. Bravo!
Hi Jamie- I’m glad you came to read and love how you phrased your sentence above. Thank you!
The poem is beautifully nuanced and I wasn’t implying that the concerns of nuclear “provocation” (wonderful) and so forth are not legit, I was pointing more at the way news is presented to us. Anyway, Jane. Very well done and frankly, memorable.
Be well. Poem on …
I hear you. “Hyper-sensational ad-sponsored fears of the day” is a really brilliant way to say it. We are flooded by the info. daily. In all honesty, I am just trying to stay focused on what I can actually take on. So glad to have your voice here, Jamie!!
Jane–this one slapped me awake. Really like it!
Hi Jane – I especially like the opening and close of this – I guess no one can really “like” a lunch of drone policies and nuclear provocation–a rather indigestible lunch – one thing very interesting about your choices is to begin with drone – when there’s a bit of well, you know, “hanging out” going on at the beginning, and even nuclear provocation is an interesting term rather than proliferation – one feels somehow like this nuclear familial view is so very separate from the world view, and it raises for me the question (that you raise throughout the poem) how do they connect? Is it a provocation? Our little homey circles?
I don’t know – I love the childhood on their tongues and sun in their eyes – a very sharp turn there, and the idea that you are changing lightbulbs also made me laugh. I can’t help but think of the low energy ones which are such a good idea but so incredibly irritating! And lightbulbs as an idea of course, and then too the removing locks. Viewfinder perfect word to end on. Very cool .k.
k, I was thinking North Korea specifically re. nuclear provocation. There are many big issues we could worry about, and to my knowledge fretting has never solved anything. Our deep concerns remind us what is important to us… love, safety, health. How can we bring more of those things into our daily lives? Still, there are bulbs to be changed. Thanks for your thoughts. I hope the storm treats you well.
Thanks – it’s a really charming, but serious poem. k.
Real life is a bitch–and you detail how and why well here, Jane–yes, we have all the poison all the time, but also the sweet, and just balancing it with something as simple as the round opposite movements of unscrewing/screwing in a lightbulb, restoring light…very subtle and well-phrased.
Thanks, Hedge. I appreciate your read. Yes. to restoring light. Have a wonderful weekend.
How differently your wildfowl are named, we don’t have widgeons, mergansers or blue herons here in the UK [to the best of my knowledge], and to set all these wonderful creatures along with children ‘collecting early childhood on their tongues’ is wonderfully evocative … hence the contrast of the final three stanzas is rendered more effective ~ wonderful poetry Jane ~ I enjoyed this read.
thank you for your wonderful comments. You would likely adore the widgeons and mergansers here- given your delight with nature. I want very much to visit your part of the world and experience the wildfowl. Just last night in a dream I met a bird I didn’t recognize and I wonder where it lives. Cheers to you, Polly.
Children are laughing at the sun
in their eyes and collecting
early childhood on their tongues.
I just love that, Jane.
thank you, Laurie. It is definitely the most poetic part : )
smiles…sometimes we do need to recheck that perspective…i like how you take it back small there in the end jane…coming back ot the simple things we know we can do…i like how the birds and children are living and not overcome with worry…perhaps there is something there for use to learn…smiles.
LOL! this at first I thought pointed to some immediate crisis of health, something. But then I realized how you were writing….like a bellows to me. I visualized an expansion and contraction, the landscape around you and then the inner landscape.
And then that wonderful resolve.
What a provocative poem, Jane. This is definitely one that I WISH I could have written.
Probably my favorite of the week!
Lady Nyo
thank you, ladynyo…what a gorgeous compliment!
Cheers to your week.
: )