Hi! This year (2023), I’m continuing my quest to share a poem on my blog and podcast and read it aloud. It’s all a part of my quest to be brave and apparently the things that I’m scared about still include:
- My spoken voice
- My raw poems.
Thanks for being here with me and cheering me on, and I hope that you can become braver this year, too!
For Anne & Maxine
Why is it that the dead
Never listen to my pillow talk?
I am tired, but can’t sleep
Again and again and again.
You snore next to me
And occasionally twitch
As the dog snuggles in between us,
Released from her crate
Because she cries so much.
Again and again and again,
Why is that my whines
Never wake anyone up?
Not even myself.
So, this week I’ve decided to read one of my grandmother’s poems instead.
Full disclosure: I have a lot of grandmothers and they are all dead and this one was about 4’10 at maximum height and this grandmother was already 75 when I was born.
Luckily, she lived a long time so I got to know her. But her poems? They were hidden away and only brought out when my little hobbit dad begged her to see them. It was rare. She, like me, was pretty fearful about sharing her poems and her art.
But art and communication and thought isn’t meant to be hidden away, is it? So here’s to Grammy and here’s to being brave.
Grammy Barnard Poem #2 March 11, 1927 A Wish Love, she goes hand in hand with spring, To thoughts of this girl then you will cling, Go dear, and to her tell, Of the desire you have in her heart to dwell, Tell her while sweet spring is here, Tell her while she still is near, Tell her of moonlight, tell her of flowers, Tell her of love, and its wondrous powers.
Hey, thanks for listening to Carrie Does Poems.
The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Summer Spliff by Broke for Free.