The night the Old Albatross died
I remember the infantile give
of my muscles when I heard
the news, the way I slumped
into our chipped and faded driftwood
beach chair we’d made by hand.
I remember every detail etched
into the sodden wood by hands
both much older and much younger
than the ones that held my face
and tried to push back the tears.
At night, when the scrapes and splinters
our chair had given us were mended,
the tired waves would lap against
the shore and disappear like the ghosts
in the static of the old radio he used
to let me fall asleep to, gently crooning
along with the weary rhythm of the ocean.
I remember our favorite crooners
had every bit of the grit in their voices
as the beach where we found our treasures,
starfish and shiny broken bottles, old metals.
One summer, when the thought crossed
my mind that I was an adult, I remember
my old bird, more of a Loon by then,
sat me down and showed me His treasures.
His stars, his metals, old photos that looked
more like my sister than my grandmother,
things he’d earned when he was barely
older than I was.
I had to read it twice to get the rhythm in the first line, but nicely done Jen. I love the detail, it's almost tangible. However, I feel like this piece could have gone on a little bit longer than it did. It ends a little too soon for me.
ReplyDeleteThe detail with making the chair, the memories involved, melded beautifully with the grief in the beginning, but the end seems very abrupt. I want to see more. Maybe a transition from the childhood memories to more as a teenager, or even young adult, something else. More than just the last stanza's worth.
Otherwise, very well put together.
waves as static line seems familiar somehow...
ReplyDeleteI'm not a poetry guy, I like very little of it save what depends on the white chickens and all that. However, I don't know if this is because this is the first piece of yours that I have read, but I am pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it. The voice here is much older than yours and so I enjoy the way it affects me, yet the use of the word "crooner" takes me out of it for a moment and given there is so little left to the poem there is not a lot of time to recover. Again, this may in part be because I know how young you are and I understand there is a play with the later use of "loon" but for me this was its only flaw. I'm not sure if I want more because this is about endings which are often abrupt anyway.
jen,
ReplyDeleteim not much of a poetry person as we all know, but this made me "feel". I would have to agree that some more needs to be added, possibly the transitions between child, young adult, and older. endings describe the life we lived and this was a ending befitting of a life worth living. I do agree about the use of crooning... something else needs to be in its place.