It was sometime back in the early 90s when my French professor at the University of North Dakota said prose was a painting, but poetry was a sculpture, and it had to be perfect from every angle—and that’s why he loved it. As he talked, he rotated a piece of pottery in his hand so we could gaze at its every curve, and I knew I would never forget it.
It’s a cozy time of year, and I imagine its darkness sprinkled with hot baths and candles and the words of my favorite poet, Luci Shaw. The sight of one of her “sculptures” is enough to slow my breathing and soothe me away to a higher place.
Although my mother is a poet (she wouldn’t say so), I can’t say I am. That doesn’t stop me from writing letters to Dicka in Kona, though, my latest including a Roses Are Red poem, a haiku, and a limerick. And of course, they come at the end of my notes like the releasing of a helium balloon instead of leaving her with a stone—however polished it might be.
A poem Dicka wrote at age seven surfaced in the family text thread yesterday. Flicka posted it as if it were no big deal to have access to a photo of her sister’s fourteen-year-old poetry handy on a random Wednesday morning.
I’ll leave you with my youngest’s words. And if you haven’t already, I hope you too can one day hear “the crabs chomping.”
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*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka and their husbands, Snipp, Snapp, and Snurr.