The Dream of Perpetual Sunshine

As a former English teacher, one of the many courses I taught was Creative Writing.  Naturally, we had a unit on poetry.  I wrote the curriculum and called this “Poetry Like the Pros.”  Students would model their own work after well-recognized and oft-praised poets.  For example, we did a nature walk where they obtained sensory details and then wrote a poem in the style of Robert Frost.  They also had to experiment with different forms of poetry.  One of my favorites has always been the sestina.  If you’re a writer or blogger, this is a fun form of poetry  to try your own hand at. 

The sestina, a French form, is an intricate form of six unrhymed stanzas of six lines each, followed by a Tercet (three lines). This type of form works well for the poet who wants to examine a subject from different viewpoints.  The sestina depends on the repetition of end-words, but be aware that only the end word repeats, not as in other French forms where the entire line repeats.

Choose any 6 words, such as:

a) daughter  b) sunshine  c) voice  d) garden  e) music  f) joy

The pattern:

Stanza 1: a, b, c, d, e, f

Stanza 2: f, a, e, b, d, c 

Stanza 3: c, f, d, a, b, e

Stanza 4: e, c, b, f, a, d

Stanza 5: d, e, a, c, f, b

Stanza 6: b, d, f, e, c, a

Tercet: ab, cd, ef

 

The Dream of Perpetual Sunshine

I have awaited your arrival my entire life, daughter

Believed fervently that you would erase the clouds and color the sky with your sunshine

I have prayed and prayed, God finally acknowledging my voice

I planted the seed of you in my mind – an ever-blooming garden

Your father and I held each other and collaborated on a gentle duet of music

The tears now gone – the frown now faded – you are my joy

I lived a life abundant with sin and sorrow, devoid of joy

Until I first held you in my arms, my daughter

To the chaos and cacophony, you brought temperance and a sweet, soothing music

My child – my love – my beautiful – my ethereal – my joy

You will bloom and grow in this life – Sarayu’s garden

I hope that in your silence, you might hear his mighty voice

 

Sweet child, so young, you have already found your unique voice

Your voice – your laughter – your gentle cooing – brings unto me pure joy

One day we will plod and plant together a simple, artful garden

In the garden, you will come to know strength and beauty, my precious daughter

The lily, the daisy, the lilacs too, all of these, as you, shall grow with sunshine

And the rose will be the grand conductor over every other flower as they  gleefully hum his music

 

Until this day, I have never heard a truer tune – such beloved, blessed music

Nothing – not Mozart, not Beethoven, nor Chopin – could compare to that cry – my own child’s voice

All failed to compare – even the warm, welcoming embrace of the summer sunshine

I wonder if, in all my life, I will ever know a greater, more genuine joy

Than the birth of my first child – my so deeply cherished own daughter

You are more grandiose – more exalted – than even the deepest red rose of the garden

 

You shall one day be required to tend to the dirt and weeds of your own garden

And darkness may drown out the light, a steely silence replace the exhalant music

You may then know the secret your mother holds, my own fragile daughter

And you might cringe at the sound of your own voice

You will search in the cupboards, the bureau drawers, the arms of strangers for anything resembling joy

And yet you will be denied those radiant rays of the now fickle sunshine

 

But I will always offer my love, my own warm embrace, even when skies are grey, my only sunshine

And I will uproot all those wicked weeds that attempt to cling to you in the great garden

Do not fear – do not lose hope – in time again, you will become well acquainted with joy

You won’t have to listen hard – or hush out any voices – to hear the music

Stronger now – wiser now – beaten, but not bruised – emerges a far more brilliant voice

They can never, ever quiet your shine, your strength, your shout, my daughter
 

  

I wish for my daughter to live in perpetual sunshine

I know her voice may falter if she fails to nurture her green garden

But I know, too, that even when the music is loud and out of tune, there still exists joy – joy – joy  

Suck it Sam!

On our wedding day, my husband Sam had the grand idea to smoke a cigar with his father directly before our first dance.  I had to endure that awful stench for an entire three minutes and forty two seconds.  As our song was coming to a close, I softly and sweetly whispered to him, “Baby, you better find a tic-tac and some fucking Febreze if you think you’re dancing with me again tonight.”

He found some gum and sprayed on some of my sister’s Victoria’s Secret body splash.  I guess he made an effort, so I danced with him again anyhow.  He has done better since that moment, though.  To make up for his poorly timed male bonding that night, he now wakes me up every morning on our anniversary and we dance together to our song.  Long say it out loud Aaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

My husband makes me smile and laugh, and has hung in there with me through thick and thin.  If you’ve been following this blog, or know me in real life, you can imagine what he’s endured.  Only my best friend Angie (again – not me in third person) knows what he has actually endured, and she has a lot of shit she’s taking to the grave with her.

Sam and I were friends for long years before I realized he was the right one for me.  I was a silly, stupid girl (see my dating advice for my daughter).  I stumbled upon this actualization that he was meant for me about a week before he was scheduled to go on vacation with another one of his close female friends.  (He had lots of girl friends, but very few girlfriends.)  They traveled down to Mexico together and I wrote a truly terrible poem about my concerns.  I remember there being a line like “Don’t fall in love under the summer sun – you’ll get tanned, and I’ll get burned.”  Awful; just fucking awful.

Sam had never been big on poetry anyway.  I’m not entirely sure he understands the majority of my writing.  He knows it makes me happy though, so he tries to be supportive.  I say TRY because I think this takes a real concerted effort on his part.  I can imagine that he keeps repeating the word “fiction” in his head.  “Fiction! Fiction! Whey can’t she write fucking fiction?”  Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of, “Oh shit.  Please don’t write about this in your blog.”    

My husband teaches in a juvenile correctional facility, so he has a lot of patience.  The students here refer to him as a “Ned Flanders looking mother fucker.”  He shrugs it off, and keeps on trying.  As if his occupation were not challenging enough, then he has to come home to me.  Poor suffering bastard.  And now, because he was a wee bit pissy with me tonight when I told him I was writing despite his needing help with our children, I have made it my goal to prove him wrong.  All successful marriages are built on one spouse constantly needing to be right. 

For me to be right in this particular instance I need to increase my readership to over 100 likes in one week.  I need your help to make that happen, so start following Not Appropriate Angela on facebook.  I’ll be holding you all in my heart when I scream: “SUCK IT!”

Poetry

Sometimes I write really bad poetry.  Once, around the age of twenty, I entered a “punny” little poem into an online contest.  This was that poem:

I keep telling myself – tomorrow.

I will leave him tomorrow.

But tomorrow never comes … and neither do I.  

Get it? Surprise! – I didn’t win.