Bouquet
Eileen Myles reads through the ending of her poems. She does not work to set up an end. There is, then there is not. I enjoyed her reflections between poems, the 70s were the times she looks back to, for the lockdown she did not leave Marfa, not even for love.
I spent everyday outside since I smelled this hot summer coming. I could not do the work earlier, I was collecting data, weighing options, I was combining imagination with soil.
I found the first mention of the Chickadee in a myth in Vi Hilbert’s Haboo. I like mythologizing this small bird. This common bird. In the story when the canoe carver is taken into the clouds and the people and creatures join together to reclaim them the chickadee is the only one able to shot their arrow to notch into the sky. This story also is the first I have come across the reason for the Robin’s red chest, but that is a different moment.
“The poems may write themselves, but they will not print themselves.” Learning to ask the right questions at the fedex on Broadway. Made our way there, feeling lighter after I left. Stopping every two blocks for gin and tonics and something to eat.
Summer is here. I must water often and always think then of this toll of my garden and plant love. That the water bill increases, that I pull from the finite tank off the Cedar River that we drink from. Every year I get closer to a rain collection system in effect. I have the rain collected, I have it higher than the beds. The water sits for months then is gone in a few weeks. Never enough for the Butternut Squash, for the tomato, for the Cukes, and beans.
Poetry readings are funny. I grew up in Slams and loud open mics. Situations the mc would ask listeners to respond in. Feet were stomped, thighs were slapped, air was whistled, hands clapped, fingers snapped. It was performative. It takes time but there can be genuine response. I like it better than the opposite. At the Myles reading people were quiet, not even an exclamation to naturally fill the sudden silence at the end of the poem. At the end there was clapping, and there was laughing at the points in Myles stories that caused this reaction. I felt to be the one that snaps I would some how break an unknown spoken rule of the older crowd.
