Time For A New Poem

Time For A New Poem

By Stephanie Mesler

This is me, writing a new poem because it's time to commit poesy.  I know it is, because it's marked in my day planner.  2 PM on Monday afternoon--- "write a new poem."  It's not even in pencil.  I've inked it in between an appointment with the oncologist and tea with my great Aunt, who will, no doubt arrive on time with a bottle of something sharp to add to the tea, so I'd better get started.  She tells me the poem will be payment for her company.  So I am writing...a poem?...sort of.  Or maybe it's just an essay, a plain old boring essay about how poems do not submit to scheduling, no matter how determined the poet.  But no, this has to be a poem... doesn't it?  Because poems are about fleeting things, thoughts and feelings, colors, and odors...aren't they? Of course, sometimes they are about deep things, like water and philosophy, but in a poem, even broad subjects are to be detailed with brevity.  That's what poems are, or so I was taught -- thoughts expressed or stories told  in the barest bones of language.  It's like building scaffolding around a tower that already exists, then, knocking down the tower, leaving only the framework around it.  The scaffolding is the poem.  A skeleton of sorts that, once, surrounded living flesh.  No, that's not quite right.  The skeleton itself lives.  If I do my job well, it will dance a graveyard jig... which is truly an awful metaphor for a gift I'll offer a 92-year-old who tells me every week the newest poem might be the last poem I write for her.  So, now it's 2:45 and the doorbell will no doubt ring just before three.  I need to lay out the cups and the saucers, the ones with the little hand-painted flowers, and the silver spoons, the assortment of teas in many flavors, a bowl of real sugar cubes, and a pitcher of milk.  No one will touch the sugar or the milk, because tea should be drunk black and strong, but I'll put it out anyway, because I was raised by an Aunt who believed in doing things properly and now is not the time to start disappointing her. 

© Stephanie Mesler 2018