Until that last one, it'd been a long time since I'd posted any poetry. I'm still reading it though, and still thinking about it. But maybe I don't feel as coherent about it, or like I have anything to add to it.
Compounding the problem is the fact that about the time I started to go AWOL from the blog, TypePad, bless them, started upgrading their system and they keep at it- and while I'm sure this is all to the good, every time I log in the posting template looks more and more foreign to me and as I poke around trying to figure it out I feel the way my mother looks when trying to work the TiVo remote.
Nevertheless, on with the show. I like this one and it feels seasonal to me. Not Christmassy, but end-of-year-ish. I think some of us, even if we don't make resolutions (which I don't) still think about the year that is gone and the one that's coming down the pike and what we like about our lives and what we don't and, well, what we want.
What We Want
What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names-
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don't remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.
-by Linda Pastan, in
this.
I really like the bit about 'the things we thought we wanted... now they want us.' Overall, this poem evokes for me those times when I know something needs to change but I don't know, or maybe can't admit to myself, what it is. I felt like this a lot when I was younger and I feel it much less now- now I know more what I want, I remember the dream- but I still relate to the poem.
Thoughts?
I hope Santa was good to everyone.