ManicDDaily

Here’s a revised version of the poem I wrote last Saturday for Victoria C. Slotto’s dVerse Poets prompt about quilting and the fabric of life.  I posted the poem then as a draft under the title “Against the Weave,” and although I received very kind comments, I felt certain that I had not conveyed the real kernel of the poem, which is perhaps sadder than the original draft.

This issue of drafts and re-drafts is one of the hard things about blogging poetry.  I, for one, get a strong urge to post quickly, especially when working with a publicized prompt.  (One never wants to be too far down on the link list!)

Don’t get me wrong, prompts are terrific.  They spark one out of one’s groove.  One problem of a premature posting for me, however, is that I find it mortifyingly difficult/embarrassing to revisit work once it’s gone out into the world.

I also worry that it’s a bit of a burden to followers to repost revised work.  (I’m not sure how many people are that interested in my creative process.)

All that said, I’m very thankful for the supportive community (dVerse Poets mainly, Jingle, and of course, my non-virtual friends!) who have given me the nerve to review, revise and repost.  (Ha!)

(Please note that the details of the poem are all imagined/changes come mainly in middle.  Also, sorry it’s so long.)

Born Blind (circa 1927)

The convulsive flicker
could just hook onto the gap
between white and black but
other spectral shifts–
cadmium to indigo to green–
could not be seen, nor shapes–
except those looming or not there–s0
he chose his shades by smell mainly: some washed
with the salt of fresh ham, others imbued
with a kind of must, a corner of the
barn where the planks rotted.
An occasional skein smelled
new mown while others
he could barely stand to sniff, their acrid
sharpness testifying to strident dyes, the warp
of fresh uniform–he remembered when his brothers
had gone off–even the diluted stink
of the slaughtering pen.

Then there were the webs
of cloth that he twisted before weaving;
their original patterns–the chintz or pink
geometry–converted on his cellar loom to
a knotted crisscross, stripes
that would hold up to years
of sun or shadow, feet and floor–and
those, when his quick hearing was sure
of isolation, he would cleave close–
donations mainly, they smelled
of the cleanliness of some other
farmhouse, run by some other
woman, girl, who wore a drape of skirt
over thighs unseen by all, and,
even in those rough crinkles
of sweat that refused to vacate the
joints of blouse or dress, carried softly tensile
traces–if only the ghost
of a fold–whose feel he craved
in the sameness of night/day,
beneath the clack-clack
of shuttle and loom.

He stood
like someone tied to a chair, chest
in seeming strain, hands
to sides, shirt,
like a boy’s, buttoned right up
to the chin, belt loops slightly
puckering.  He’s very bright, you know,
they whispered insistently.

Eyelids fluttered
beneath a pale high
forehead that seemed to squint
in compensation.  But meeting him,
one (turning from eyes,
forehead) was drawn to
those hands, with their large
chiseled knuckles.
Hard to realize from their
stiff dangle how very fast they could
weave.  For he got
good at it, a past-time
allowed a blind man
when sons were meant to plow
straight furrows.

(P.S. – don’t forget to check out NOSE DIVE, new novel by Karin Gustafson, illustrated by Jonathan Segal.  Thanks!)

I am also linking this piece to Imperfect Prose since it’s almost more a story than poem.