They went to the Jemez Springs book-barn and found a bunch. In the 1986 volume on how to write were several poems from this book. It's the kind of thing we share...spotting interesting bits, sometimes even large chunks, of literature, places on the map to go check out, rocks.
We've recognized our inability to live together. Three to six weeks at a time was perfect. One day, the other day, reminded me of how much we share. That was Friday and I'm still not fully recovered. It was the trip to the library while she napped that did me in.
It's scary how much I understand, or at least think I understand, what's going on in her mind. And that final line! So many levels there. So much struggle.
ReplyDeleteGreg,
DeleteCould you give us an annotated version?
OK, I'll take a crack at it and maybe you can see if there's bits of me in there, - or you. Or if I'm just full of crap.
DeleteI see someone that, because of her challenges, has spent her life watching a world she doesn't quite understand, go on around her, but without her. Someone that has struggled to master something eveybody else seems to be able to do easily, spell her own name and write it too. She likes writing her name because it's an accomplishment that lets her participate in normal life, even if it's in a small way.
She likes to write her name in white. Perhaps because white can be seen on the dark page that dominates her life. Perhaps because white disappears on the white page of the life around her, letting her be part of it without being seen, without having to interact. Perhaps because hardly anyone else writes thier name in white, making her unique, shouting into, and over, the confusion.
And that line 'I got my own money,'. She wants to let a world obsessed with things, with money, know that she's there too. And that almost plaintive 'I do.' tacked on the end - I can just see her holding a handfull of money out in her trembling hand to prove, to herself as much as to anyone else, that she's worthy, that she counts too.
The final line, 'Trying to.' Trying to what? Master writing her name? Be part of the world around her? Be heard? Be good? Be worthy?
I just want to reach out, steady her hand, and tell her she's doing fine. That she's heard. That she matters.
Beautiful
Delete