lester

connected meanderings
2006-03-09 10:33:54 (UTC)

poem from Monday

Moving Day Self Portrait

This month I take leave of my studio of three years.
Sorting, discarding, also perseverating
Certain long ago values, such as unscrewing
Such things as old screws, as I might use some of them
again.

This value started at my age five years, proudly oldest of
two:
An old horse-barn needed destruction, to come down.
But its materials would build a new structure on the farm.
I proudly helped retrieve the nails, recycling through

No community program of selective pickup but
From the wish my parents expressed to spend less
On the brooder-coop nails that otherwise would cost.
Now when I now recall that coop to mind, I feel I’d helped
to put it up!

This persists in implicit as well as explicit memory
As one can see from how I over-save these old screws
From a discarded kitchen sink; they go not into refuse
But into a little drawer of a set Dad surely once got for
almost free

Given he loved auctions and though he had probably retired
When he happened to acquire this set of sorted stuff
His old habits persisted; he’d never get enough.
And me too! I guess our psyches – similarly wired –

Tell that though the future’s finite, no longer forward
forever,
I like he save more than throw; for me, I envision
projects sculptural not
The practical and useful notions that he’d put
Things aside for: projects for others, generous, a giver.

But of course the generations go on, each one
Inventing their values anew. So I ask myself: will this
writing
More satisfactorily help them downstream than fighting
With palpable screws, wood, ceramic, and so on?

Well, so I think but those straightened nails at my age
five years
Still more dominate my actions: art will occupy at least
my walls
Even though probably discarded upon my going. Well, duty
calls –
And I need to continue this moving task; I work steadily,
without tears.




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