Prompt: Today we’d like you to start by taking a look at Alicia Ostriker’s poem, “The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog.” Now try your hand at writing your own poem about how a pair or trio very different things would perceive of a blessing or, alternatively, how these very different things would think of something else (luck, grief, happiness, etc).
The Simple Things
To be blessed
said the child
is to have your mother
close by,
soft arms to hold you,
catch you,
kisses planted
on the top
of your head
like seeds,
watered with love,
to grow,
grow.
To be blessed
said the mother
is to have a moment
to yourself
just one fucking moment,
just a minute
to pee alone
to do anything
or go anywhere
by myself.
I'm so overwhelmed,
suffocating
for love of you
...to have a dream
and reach for mountaintops
a career?
when? where?
perhaps I'll find it
at the bottom
of the laundry basket,
perhaps when I've tidied
all the dollies and blocks
the mismatched puzzle pieces
I'll remember who I am
and who I wanted to be.
To be blessed
said the voice from the deathbed
is to remember who you were
to someone else,
the soft touch of a tiny hand in yours,
the compassion in the squeeze of a friend's shoulder,
the kiss that lingered.
To be blessed is to gaze
beyond a hazy windowpane
and delight
whether the tree
boasts delicate blossoms
or flaming autumn hues,
and to know that this moment
will never come again.
***
Another prompt that I enjoyed delving into. I don't usually analyze my own poetry (that's for the reader to do!) but I do have a few thoughts on this one.
I deliberately thought about the structure of each stanza and the word choices. In the first stanza, the length is short and the sentence structure is simple to mirror the narrative voice. The final stanza offers a more introspective voice - wiser, with more poignant imagery, but not overly long. The middle stanza, with it's stream of consciousness, is the lengthiest.
The semantic field of nature is carried throughout, and we see repetitions of themes as well as key terms. The mismatched puzzle pieces allude to the mother's loss of self, the lack of direction, feeling out of place, trying to find a way to slot back into who she thought she was. While the middle stanza is, at it's core, about a narrator whose day-to-day existence is wholly wrapped up in another person, it's predominantly the first and third stanza narrators who vocalize their relationships. Anyway, just my thoughts. What do you take from this poem?
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