On the poetry of objects

it might seem simple at first, but look again

Just like a poem, my ceramic Santa is stirring up memories for me I think, or maybe it’s just that I’m getting older.

“I can’t get into my gmail from this computer,” I say to my spouse Janyce as she is walking by me through the bedroom in her workout clothes.

“Did you try resetting your password?” she says.

“I tried everything, it keeps telling me to check my phone for a new code but then nothing comes through,” I say.

It’s late morning on Saturday and I’m sitting up in bed with my laptop. I’m looking at my phone to recover the few brief notes I took this week— notes I was planning to weave into a blog post this morning. But now my urge to give up and post a tranquil photo of the woods outside with a one line excuse about technical difficulties is almost stronger than my desire to write. That’s the funny thing about writing. I love to do it more than anything else and I also resist it so much sometimes that I back myself into a time crunch corner. I’m in one now.

“You mind if I take a look?” she says.

“Go right ahead,” I say, as I push my computer onto her lap and scroll through facebook on my phone.

This week, I changed my cover photo to a picture of the ceramic Santa that is poised on my kitchen shelf. It’s the one my Aunt Char made for me when I was a child. I’m not sure I ever looked this closely at it—the wispy eyelashes flecked over the pale blue dotted eyes, the sanded sugar trim around cuffs and pompom at the end of the hat. She made one for all my cousins that year and most of us still have them. We all posted a photo in a FB thread of how we each showcased it this year with the rest of the holiday decorations. I agree with my cousin Danielle who says that unpacking it every year makes her feel closer to our aunt.

This chubby little Santa also reminds me of the poem I read yesterday when my winter Rattle poetry journal arrived in the mail. It never disappoints.

A good poem is always one that has made the right decisions — the correct specific word, how it sounds when it is read out loud, the way it makes you feel when you are done reading it.

Just like a poem, my ceramic Santa is stirring up memories for me I think, or maybe it’s just that I’m getting older.

In this one, a grown woman is looking out her window and noticing a familiar image — one that happens every year—reminding her of a specific moment from the past. But each time the lines repeat, the image changes. It’s as if you are walking into several dark rooms and every time you enter, you turn on a light and a portrait on the wall comes into view, one you hadn’t remembered being there at all, or quite the same way, or maybe this year, you are discovering something new about it for the first time. Memories are like that.

“Pantoum from the Window of the Room Where I Write”
Alison Townsend
Stoughton, Wisconsin

At sunset the russet oak turns into a lamp.
Each polished leaf glows amber, lit by the sun.
As a child, I raked leaves with my mother each fall.
We burned small pyres, their flames the color of loss.

Each polished leaf glows amber, lit by the sun.
I could not know my mother would die young.
We burned small pyres, their flames the color of loss.
I stand here watching, older now than she ever was.

I could not know my mother would die young.
The tree is a galleon, it’s sails coppered by light.
I stand here watching, older now than she ever was.
I raked leaves into rooms and houses as a girl.

The tree is a galleon, it’s sails coppered by light.
I’ll always be a daughter, part of her body’s bright map.
I raked leaves into rooms and houses as a girl.
Death is a lit tree, it’s amber walls falling in pieces.

I’ll always be a daughter, part of her body’s bright map.
As a child, I raked leaves with my mother each fall.
Death is a lit tree, it’s amber walls falling in pieces.
At sunset the russet oak turns into a lamp.

---

Over the past two days, I’ve read this poem over and over. It contains all my favorite imagery: trees, windows, sails, sunlight, autumn leaves, amber glows. I once painted a Galleon for my Aunt Char because she liked them. It hung in her house over the couch for many years.

Janyce hands my computer back to me. “You got it to work! How did you do that?” I say.

“By paying attention to the details,” she says.