(My garden at Marci's Parents home in Page, March 28, 2012)
I pulled weeds, painted lattice work, and planted flowers in the bed along the walk here in Page, where we reside with Marci’s parents, as we’ve been doing for the past five years. It has worked well—as far as I’m concerned as well as any house on a lot in town could. The need to move has nothing to do with Page or living with my in-laws. If anything, our living situation has only reinforced how important family is. There was a time when multi-generational households were the norm. I think we’d be happier as a nation if they still were. Something meaningful grows out of the complexity of sharing lives together.
No, for me, the move is all about the cottonwood along the creek bottom at sunset, the deep, damp smells, the golden light glistening off the shadow of water that runs down the center of an ATV trail in the spring and early summer.
A couple of years ago I wrote a couple of poems for my MFA writing program which together explain my need to move.
He Entered the Poem
through a long stairway, the splintered wood
worn glossy black where heels
long ago chipped away
the white paint and shoes dragged
down to the concrete-
floored basement.
Heavy light dropped bars
of metallic dust.
He would have liked a poem of glass
and plush white carpet,
cantilevered
over the Aegean
antiquity perched
on an island across
a diamond-studded bay.
But the poem he had entered was the only one open that day
after a deafening sixth period class and a long walk through
Vermillion Cliffs Trailer Court under the intense Arizona sun,
poverty sweltering like puss. So, he did only what he could do,
which is not much. He added a stanza
An aquarium of glass water,
silver fishes swimming through soft light.
He almost transcended.
The Deep Porch Song
Clock race, heart pace, rat face, gotta get to that place.
Kneel down, prostrate, kiss feet, beg no, please!
I want an old clapboard house
with a white chipped picket fence
and a soggy leaf littered lawn.
I want a long gravel lane
over a slow churning creek
though a dense thicket of dogwood.
I want a narrow valley
cradled between high mountains,
with snow embraced in limestone folds.
I want a deep porch and tarnished door knocker,
I want gold shag carpet and dark wood paneling.
I want dusty old radiator heaters coated
with five thick layers chipped and showing through.
I want the smell of roast beef,
and mashed potatoes.
I want days of sitting
in my rocker reading
Bill Bryson while stoking fire.
