Rocking
Chair
Feb 18 2015
The rocking chair tick-tocks
like a pendulum clock's
slow lead weight,
back and forth
on the wooden floor
on gently curved runners.
The pine boards are worn
to dark dull honey,
the chair's varnished gloss
The rocking chair tick-tocks
like a pendulum clock's
slow lead weight,
back and forth
on the wooden floor
on gently curved runners.
The pine boards are worn
to dark dull honey,
the chair's varnished gloss
long gone.
Wood-on-wood, in a low rustling squeak
as she drifts
on the cusp of dreaming.
Not keeping time
but letting it go;
no deadlines, late fines,
no endless list of chores.
The baby's boneless body
curves into hers,
head, lolling on her breast,
her arms
Wood-on-wood, in a low rustling squeak
as she drifts
on the cusp of dreaming.
Not keeping time
but letting it go;
no deadlines, late fines,
no endless list of chores.
The baby's boneless body
curves into hers,
head, lolling on her breast,
her arms
enclosing him.
The room is dark
except for a small warm pool,
the glow
of weak incandescence
through a yellow parchment shade.
The room is dark
except for a small warm pool,
the glow
of weak incandescence
through a yellow parchment shade.
The shadow is soft-edged
bodies merged together.
It rocks in tandem
with mother and child,
longer …shorter
like a perfect counter-weight.
A perpetual motion machine,
if you hadn't noticed her toe
cheating time,
to and fro
against the floor
like a living metronome,
in sync with her heart.
Something I read made me picture a rocking chair. I immediately flashed back to an image that persists in my memory: looking in the window at woman I know well, going slowly back and forth in a worn rocking chair in a darkened house in a pool of light. She used to nurse her babies on that old chair. The old floor was well-worn, almost warped; the light weak and warm. A rocking chair is a lovely thing to write about. You immediately ease into its comforting rhythm, feel its hypnotic tick-tock rocking you to sleep.
I've also been encountering a lot of themes about motherhood. So who better to occupy that chair?
I hope the poem isn't too clichéd and sentimental. Especially the last line. (On the other hand, there's always Hallmark. At least they pay by the word!)
The theme of time (and time-keeping devices) is also prominent here. This is a frequently recurring trope with me. Such an awareness of time -- and by implication, of death -- might seem unhealthy, almost desperate. I see it differently. Death is sad and cruel. But it sharpens our gratitude and gives our lives trajectory. Living forever, we would lose ourselves to drift. Contemplating death is not morbid. Because acknowledging mortality -- our limited time -- helps us relish life.
I think I have a poem somewhere called Keeping Time. I used the phrase again because I like its ambiguity: on the one hand, keeping track; on the other, keeping possession. You can do the former; but only to watch it go, not to count it up like some storehouse of hoarded wealth. "Saving time" is similar: as if you were deluding yourself you could put it aside, then get it back at the end. (If only!)
with mother and child,
longer …shorter
like a perfect counter-weight.
A perpetual motion machine,
if you hadn't noticed her toe
cheating time,
to and fro
against the floor
like a living metronome,
in sync with her heart.
Something I read made me picture a rocking chair. I immediately flashed back to an image that persists in my memory: looking in the window at woman I know well, going slowly back and forth in a worn rocking chair in a darkened house in a pool of light. She used to nurse her babies on that old chair. The old floor was well-worn, almost warped; the light weak and warm. A rocking chair is a lovely thing to write about. You immediately ease into its comforting rhythm, feel its hypnotic tick-tock rocking you to sleep.
I've also been encountering a lot of themes about motherhood. So who better to occupy that chair?
I hope the poem isn't too clichéd and sentimental. Especially the last line. (On the other hand, there's always Hallmark. At least they pay by the word!)
The theme of time (and time-keeping devices) is also prominent here. This is a frequently recurring trope with me. Such an awareness of time -- and by implication, of death -- might seem unhealthy, almost desperate. I see it differently. Death is sad and cruel. But it sharpens our gratitude and gives our lives trajectory. Living forever, we would lose ourselves to drift. Contemplating death is not morbid. Because acknowledging mortality -- our limited time -- helps us relish life.
I think I have a poem somewhere called Keeping Time. I used the phrase again because I like its ambiguity: on the one hand, keeping track; on the other, keeping possession. You can do the former; but only to watch it go, not to count it up like some storehouse of hoarded wealth. "Saving time" is similar: as if you were deluding yourself you could put it aside, then get it back at the end. (If only!)
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