Poetry Friday: NPM Day 1

For the last three years, I've posted daily during National Poetry Month. Looking back at my first post from 2019, 2020, and 2021, I see that every year I resist promising daily posts, saying that I probably won't manage, but each of those years, I have. (Other years I have posted daily, too, even if it was just to link to the Progressive Poem line of the day.) My theme was cleaning up open poetic tabs (posting about them, so I can close them), and sure enough, I have a bunch of tabs this year as well. Once again I feel obliged to manage my own expectations: I may not get around to posting every day, what with moving into a new place this weekend, adjusting to a new job, teaching everybody in our school from Pre-K through eighth grade, learning Spanish, and other assorted whatnot. (Will I even have internet every day in my new apartment? Stay tuned!)

Last year I chose a Haitian broom as my picture to symbolize my spring-cleaning ambitions, and this year I have a photo of a box. It's a box of things that got broken during their trip here. We put the shards in the box prior to throwing them away, and I snapped a photo because it seemed like a metaphor, all those broken bits that traveled so far only to get tossed. Not pictured: the great majority of the things we brought, which did not get broken, and which continue to be beautiful and useful in their new setting. It's all fragile, though; it's all perishable. Moving to a new country reminds you of that. So if I have a theme this year, it's Shards. Little broken bits, swept up and displayed. Maybe they'll then be thrown away, and maybe they'll be turned into something new. Who knows?

So I'm starting this year with a poem I wrote and posted back in 2017. Here's the original post, where I explain how it came to be. And here's the poem:

How to Mend a Broken Vase

 

First, gather up the shards.
Don’t forget that the shattering sent them in all directions;
There’s one, under the fridge,
And over there is another.
You’ll probably be finding pieces for quite a while.

Once you have them all picked up,
Put them in a pile,
And stare at them.

Think about whatever possessed you
To pick up that vase full of dead flowers
With butter on your hands
And scold yourself roundly.

When you’re ready, get to work with the glue.
Make a smeary mess.
Peel glue off your fingers and try again.
Cut yourself on pieces of glass,
Drop some on the ground and step on them,
Generally fail to mend the broken vase.

Give up.

Leave the pile where it is
And get irritated with it every time you see it.

Start enjoying the way the slivers of glass
Shine and sparkle as the light hits them.
Think about what you could add
To make a mosaic.

If, by chance,
It is your heart instead of a vase that you have carelessly
Allowed to get broken,
The same procedure will work.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

The incomparable Heidi is hosting today. Maybe I'll even make it to everybody's post this week, unlike most weeks lately! We'll see!