Just Sayin

I remember assignments when we were expected to explain the meaning of a famous poet’s work … what did they mean by this or that, explain this particular verse,  what was the purpose of saying certain things?  With at least fifty people in a class we could get as many as fifty different answers, and if they did not agree with the professors’ interpretations, they were all wrong.  Definitely I am not Robert Frost, Emily Dickenson, Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Yeats, or any other of those famous names with which most of us are familiar.  However, there are times when I write something that is crystal clear to me, yet I wonder what it might mean to someone else.  Along those philosophical lines I decided to share some of my less self-explanatory work.  I’ll give you a hint, both the poem and the song deal with standing between childhood and moving forward, and if you want to write about what it means, the word “bricks” suggests childhood in the poem. 

 

 

BRICKS WE ARE MADE OF 

Perhaps no one can see you;

But you are someone I never met

And everyone I ever knew.

You are the voice that said:

“yes” and “no” and “always” and “never.”  

You smell like a blade of grass, a bowl of soup , a season.

You held me in your arms, dropped me face down

And sang me to sleep--

But there were dimples in your tears.

You asked me not to hold you, and you cried when I didn’t.

You are a daydream, a nightmare--

A communion of savored wine

And ties that would forever bind.

They tore away your bricks and dropped them on these pages;

They sound like the whisper of thunder

With faces of clay that stick to my fingers.

My moods carve them out like Geppetto

And they run away.

But time pulls their strings and they dance in syncopated memories.

The beat of the jump rope taps out tomorrow.

I stand on the letter “you”  

And watch you wave hello and good-bye with the same hand.

The ends of your strings are tied to my heart.

They tap out yesterday 

And map its voices with raised letters of one-way streets.

I cannot keep you while I say good-by;

So I will write your epitaph

And you will answer with ears that hear

“yes” and “no” and “always” and “never.”