I’m excited to say that two of my new poems were published today on Fevers of the Mind. One is a memory from my childhood and the other is a Summer memory from a sweltering July evening in Idaho.
https://feversofthemind.com/2022/09/12/2-poems-from-william-peters/?s=09
This morning was a poet’s dream for me. Two poem subjects bubbled to the surface. Within a span of an hour and a half, I had completed two new poems. One came from a childhood memory and the other came from seeing a puzzle carved into a tombstone in Ontario Canada.
Steven King once observed that poems are written with the unconscious mind. I read that quote after writing the poems. I felt as though lightning had struck the ground in front of me. Those two poem subjects kept returning to my mind. I kept saying, How, and they found a way.
I’ll share my childhood memory poem.
Padding My Resume
I can remember
Being flight captain
Of my own rocket
At the early age
Of eight years
Five months
I had few problems
Visiting other worlds
With a limitless supply
Of special rocket fuel
And maintenance free
Rock knobs and stick levers
On my Navigator Control Panel
Seating was primitive
On my scaffolding
Support beam
Hanging
Over a ditch
Of a forever
Dismantled outhouse
Most of the poems that I wrote in April have aging as the organizing theme. I could have 25-30 poems that I ‘ll publish as a Chapbook this year, or see if a larger book becomes possible.
A larger book seems inevitable. Aging is more than the diminishing of our physical abilities. Aging is a natural process involving loss. And boy, do I know about that loss.
I’m just about one week into having my water pipes re-plumbed. I had to do it to avert kidney failure. I’m fresh into learning about dealing with the new plumbing. I just bought tickets to see a movie with my grandsons this Thursday. I have to practice with a new bag to see if I can make it through the movie without getting up during it.
We can’t ignore the inevitable. Aging challenges our belief system. Aging well should be a time when we come together, not a time to be the Lone Ranger. We come into this life needing the help of others to survive. We leave the same way. We need help to live well, and we need help to exit well. I learned that from the Tibetan Book of the Living and the Dead.
That’s poetry–finding the unexpected in everything rather than the obvious. My life is poetry. So is yours.
What observations do you have about aging? Leave a comment. I’d welcome your insight. What surprises you? What makes you laugh? Or cry? Or makes you want to ignore the whole thing?
Writing in Sand 