firmament

I know how you feel. I've got an old wooden trunk full of my mom's most personal belongings (including a pony tail from when she finally chose to cut her hair short). I keep thinking of it as a chest full of poems just waiting to happen. As it is though, I'm still not up to taking a shot at it. Her birthday is on the 26th of this month and I'm already getting choked up, missing her terribly. (I only knew her for 6 years!) I don't care to write poetry in that state either, but I think it could be good if I did. Honest feeling can be turned into well-crafted poetry, even if the actual feelings are buried somewhere deep within the poem. For instance, in the Phillis poem, the corny stanza keeps resonating with me because it's so close in time to the actual death (1st anniversary?) and it makes me think of the personal struggle to engage in laugher at the same time as you undergo private mourning. All good stuff to work with, if not to experience.