Sunday Poetry: Of Time and Vinyl
Welcome to Sunday Poetry. If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday poetry blogs here
I had a poem in place for today, a poem about shoveling snow. Then the warm spell came. I’ve walked my dog most of the week just wearing a hoodie, and I’m about to go out for a nice stroll in the sun.
No snow to shovel here or in many of the places we expect it. Another time for that poem.
Instead today’s poem, Bike Ride with Older Boys, by Laura Kasischke, is a powerful ode to choices made that I’ve been saving for a while. It’s a story, with a reminder that endings depend on so very little. What events in your life might have ended very differently? Do you replay them in your head and wonder?
Remember there are no quizzes here, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share. Absolutely no dissecting allowed. Just come along for the “read.” What line, word or thought will you carry with you this week? If you’d like to tell us where the poem took you? We’ll listen.
Laura Kasischke’s poem haunted me a bit. I saw parallels to Robert Frost’s poem, “Road Not Taken”, Garth Brook’s song, “Thank God for unanswered prayers” and from the Bible Matthew 7:13-14 about the wide and narrow gate. The older I get I play the “What if?” game about my choices; however, I think most about how things might be better in my life if I had made a different choice. I think Kasischke’s poem makes me think about the bad I have been shielded from by a better choice I did make. The real reason the poem haunts me, though, is we will never really KNOW what difference our choice has or will make.
Very well said, Lil. We never WILL know, and she brings that home so beautifully.