I Needed a Reminder Anyway

So, I'm a day late on my third week on the job. Yesterday wound up being grocery and feel-like-you're-going-to-collapse-in-a-heap-on-the-floor day. It's been one of those weeks. Today I woke up, glanced at my phone and found that my word of the day was "poetaster" a word which means a terrible, amateur poet. So I decided maybe I should try to share someone else's poetry instead. Unfortunately, I don't know of many mom poets (Something I'll need to rectify. Perhaps a visit to my local library is in order.). Frankly most of them are men, most in my repertoire are Irish for whatever reason, and the ones who aren't tend to be spinsters. I had one poet as a teacher in college who was a woman with one daughter, but when she read a poem of mine on embarking on motherhood (the lost one mentioned in my first entry) she completely misinterpreted it. There was a bit about, "Someday, my parents say, I'll run away from there. When my womb runs dry and my heart runs cold and I can't bear to think of a meatloaf...." She left out the "my parents say" bit and told me she hoped I wouldn't wait that long. As in, run girl! Run while you still can! There I was, pregnant for the first time, scared out of my wits, not having even finished college (the only goal I'd ever had in my short life), my parents, as in the poem, not being the most supportive they've ever been, and here's one more old woman as much as telling me she's been there and it is awful.

Anyway, I started flipping through one of my books, Tony Curtis' The Well in the Rain, and after a breakfast skimming came to the conclusion that he's probably one of those men who can't stand to look at a pregnant woman without feeling personally guilty for what men have done to her beauty. He writes about Eve, the morning after Eden, and about "The Shifting of Stones" comparing an old woman to an old shipyard. Here, it's short, perhaps I'll get nailed for copyright infringement, but I don't know how to explain someone else's poetry without quoting it and I hate to quote short poetry in part. A poem is a whole. With a short poem, lines rarely stand alone without losing their meaning. Not to mention the fact that the book was special ordered for a class and the price tag on the back is in pounds. I don't even know that if you looked for this book you'd be able to find it stateside.

The Shifting Stones
by Tony Curtis

Old Shipyards
like old women
wither and die;
too much water
in their bones

Yet, when they
were young, their
still, quiet waters
offered safe harbour;
homes for weary bones.

The song and dance
of a salty sailor charmed
my mother. The sea rocked
against her sides,
calm until the storms.

Now the stones
have shifted,
the gantries rusted.
The blessing of ships
has not been heard for years.

When I first read this poem I wrote in the margin, "What are the stones?" Now I don't know if that was my note or the question of a professor and on first re-reading my first thought is that a stone is a unit of weight. To this poem I say, shut up Tony. The world has gotten it into its head that motherhood is an ugly thing; that it, paired with age, transforms pretty young girls into ugly, fat, gossiping old women. That it's one of many tortures inflicted on poor, defenseless women by awful, abusive men. I'll let you in on some secrets: motherhood does change a woman, but only the one's who were utterly ditzy to start with will come out the other end just as frivolous. It deepens our experience of sacrifice and love and humanity. How could it not? What you're doing is witnessing a human life, one you can't help but take the deepest interest in, from the ground up. And second, some women actually like men. Scandalous, I know.

Your body will wither with age no matter how you live. That's a fact of life if you live it. If the physical is all you care for in a woman then you have no business with her any more than you would with a book if all you cared about was the feel of its cover and the scent of its pages. I've never known anyone who loves books who doesn't also love these things. While the satisfaction of breaking in a fresh spine is a pleasure, and one with a certain sadness to it, there are few things better than a book that's been well read and still holds all its pages. The dog ears, the notes, the softening of the paper, the pages that fall open.... Sorry, can you tell I was raised by a librarian? Maybe not, I'm talking about writing in books which is a habit I only picked up after leaving home. My point is that a lover is not a lover until she is well loved.