Where to start
I wouldn't know where to start
says Carol, when I ask
if she'll write poems
after she quits work. You start
with the taste of the tea,
the look of the kitchen, the view
out the window, the dream.
Start right here, with the sound
of a quiet house, faint rainbeat
on the roof, flicker of candle deep
down in a blue cup, the feel
of a wet shirt from feeding baby geese
and pulling out soggy pooped-on hay
while rain splashes down and the geese
cheep in confusion at the disappearance
of their ground and the intimidating pile
of new dry hay, like the sudden arrival
of a forest. Start with the thought
of listening to the day, of chronicling
the invisible currents as the days pass,
since the currents are not apparent up close
but the maps must be drawn up close
before we can stand back
to see the way the river runs,
before we see how it was
to travel into this new place,
this motherhood, this remembering,
before we can peel
the layers of the story back
and look at how the river has carried us
when we didn't know how we could carry
one more thing.
copyright Tina Tau, 2000
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