For many years, I’ve said, half in jest and entirely in earnest, “When I grow up, I want to write poetry.” And I’ve made attempts down through the years. There’s even a fairly good-sized blue file labeled “My Poems” that I look through periodically. I’ve managed to send off a few and two have even been published in women’s journals that no longer exist. Lately I’ve asked a friend who is a poet to help me think through one in particular that I wish could become a whole unit. But I’m 80 years old, so I need to stop fantasizing some future adult poetic self. So I thought a few days ago that I might try posting some lines here and see if that might help me be more serious about this wish. People who study our dream life insist that writing down dreams helps us have more of them because they feel taken seriously. So maybe I can help my incipient poems feel appreciated and taken more seriously by sending them out over this present-day medium. So here goes:
“Wettest June on record”
rain fell often, soaking rain for hours
days of thunder, nights of lightning, sheets of water–
all welcome in this summer of broken drought
one day it fell so long and hard I heard
my mother’s voice at home
“cats and dogs–it’s raining cats and dogs!”
what could that adage signify?
did Zeus indulge a fit of pique, fling down small furries
to amuse himself and vex his people?