before i understood what catches and who holds
Man, is there anything more annoying than discovering that the title you wanted to use for a story no longer works once the story is written? So you have to do the frantic title-scramble, combing through poetry and quotes and lyrics, looking for something that suits? Ugh. Stupid titles. Maybe this one can be "The One with Biscuits and Gravy." Anyway, it's better that the original title doesn't work with this one, as I was going to use it for a different wip anyway, and would have had to think of other titles for that one if I ever finish it. Otoh, I have two titles I can't decide between for a story I don't have figured out, let alone written. Sigh.
Stupid titles.
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Time Bomb by Jessy Greene, which I mentioned yesterday morning.
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Last night's Psych = ♥
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Have a poem:
Gutters
Fall Saturdays my father called me
down to the carport for the season's ritual chores,
we changed spark plugs, wiped and stacked the pegboard's tools,
and once a year climbed a ladder tilted to the roof
to free the gutters from leaves. My father would tie
a rope around his waist, then mine, tug-testing it twice,
and balanced by his steady counter-weight I would crawl
on my knees to the ledge, gouge out solid married leaves and sticks,
fling them to the ground where my mother's kerchiefed head
bobbed over roses, my sister spread pinestraw under the Japanese maple.
A lazy girl, I hated this chore above all others,
loathed how at night while undressing
I'd find a few spots at the hip where the skin had peeled back
under the rope's burn in a mark of my attachment.
If I had believed then what I half-believe now,
that everything we do is a gentle metaphor,
with every handful I would have cleared the closing paths
of my father's heart, and might have saved his life.
Those fast seasons on the roof I tripped just once,
my father lunging a few steps forward,
yanked by a weight that must have surprised him,
must have seemed to have grown overnight into the full
and real girl of me. I snapped my head up in time
to see the worried o folding creases up his face,
on my way down, a fall of full years before I understood
what catches and who holds.
~Josie Raney
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/83151.html.
people have commented there.
Stupid titles.
***
Time Bomb by Jessy Greene, which I mentioned yesterday morning.
***
Last night's Psych = ♥
***
Have a poem:
Gutters
Fall Saturdays my father called me
down to the carport for the season's ritual chores,
we changed spark plugs, wiped and stacked the pegboard's tools,
and once a year climbed a ladder tilted to the roof
to free the gutters from leaves. My father would tie
a rope around his waist, then mine, tug-testing it twice,
and balanced by his steady counter-weight I would crawl
on my knees to the ledge, gouge out solid married leaves and sticks,
fling them to the ground where my mother's kerchiefed head
bobbed over roses, my sister spread pinestraw under the Japanese maple.
A lazy girl, I hated this chore above all others,
loathed how at night while undressing
I'd find a few spots at the hip where the skin had peeled back
under the rope's burn in a mark of my attachment.
If I had believed then what I half-believe now,
that everything we do is a gentle metaphor,
with every handful I would have cleared the closing paths
of my father's heart, and might have saved his life.
Those fast seasons on the roof I tripped just once,
my father lunging a few steps forward,
yanked by a weight that must have surprised him,
must have seemed to have grown overnight into the full
and real girl of me. I snapped my head up in time
to see the worried o folding creases up his face,
on my way down, a fall of full years before I understood
what catches and who holds.
~Josie Raney
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/83151.html.
people have commented there.