Penmanship
Jan 17 2012
We were graded on spelling, neatness
penmanship.
By the time I entered school
the stern guardians of English
who always smelled of chalk dust and lavender
had relented
permitting ball-point pens,
sparing us the mess
of ink, and nibs.
While my envied older brother
was far enough advanced
to have mastered the fountain pen,
a substantial thing
with the immense appeal
of mechanical parts.
The modern world
rushing into the space age
had little patience
for blotters, ink stains.
Picking up a pencil
the very first time
I gripped it backhand,
and have stubbornly clung to this habit
ever since.
I write like a leftie,
contorting my wrist in a tight overhand curl
smearing ink.
Grade school teachers scolded and scorned,
but couldn’t break me.
My printing is chicken-scratch
cursive horrible,
signature
easily forged.
I have heard that an early sign of dementia
is regression,
notes written in a childish hand
that betrays infirmity —
the hesitation, and tremor
the simplified sentence
the glaring grammatical lapse.
But for better, or worse
my hand-writing has always been bad.
So when my time comes
it will be hard to tell
just how diminished I am.
A rare letter
recently arrived from my dad.
In a month, he will be 90
entering the 10th decade of life.
His scrawl is barely legible.
The effort looks painfully cramped,
as if the letters had shrunk
along with him,
like the closet of suits
he no longer needs
nor fits.
His hand-writing was never elegant,
but I could always tell
it was his.
Now, this looks like the work of a stranger,
decrepit, hunched, pinched.
But though his hand wavers
and his mind wanders
I can see his will is strong.
He writes me long-hand
on creamy paper
in dark blue ink.
Direct, and unsentimental
just as I remember him.
He wrote his own father every week
without fail
until the old man’s death.
A Sunday ritual, a means of connection,
when a long distance call
was a big event.
Now, every few weeks
we speak by phone.
That is, when my mother remembers
to call him over
say hello.
