Count 1234 (One Shoot Sunday)
*inspired by a photo taken during the Great Depression
1234 the counting beats
on soles the pavements
suffer through
–sorrows smudge hunger
pouting on granite
fissured by want.
Does counting
drill away the hunger?
As if to dig up
completes the burying,
hunger in bags
as crap.
What is the anatomy
of want? Under lenses
combine 1234 in thickness–
in sum, does hunger
make sense? Raking up
senselessness bares bones,
innocence the marrow.
In 1234 nothing shows but
the waiting as if
it were a birthright–
the anatomy for hunger.
Combine 1234 in lean-ness
in sum what rings up? Only
the stark stare, the rage
of hunger—the true sum.
I posted this poem for One Shoot Sunday at the One Stop Poetry blog.
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About
autumn wind
wondering about lilies
in a mountain pond
Tell me a writer who really gets a satisfying jornal, in Spanish a daily wage or its equivalent, and I’ll bare a spirit in constant bouts of doubtfulness. Does a writer earn more because of what he writes and how he does it? Or is a writer paid more or less because of who he is? Is it money or honor he expects to receive?
Ahhh … but money as wage, and praise or honor as reward would be too predictable, too common as Job lamented in the Book of Job. It is in these lines that read: “Is not man’s life on earth nothing more than pressed service, his times no better than hired drudgery? Like the slave, sighing for the shade, or the workman with no thought but his wages, months of delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief. Lying in bed I wonder, ‘When will it be day?’ Risen I think, ‘How slowly evening comes!’
Restlessly I fret till twilight falls. Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle my days have passed, and vanished, leaving no hope behind. Remember that my life is but a breath, and that my eyes will never again see joy.”
Not money but joy is the ultimate wage as the passage implies. And joy is not hard to earn for it is in everyday life if we have eyes to see, a nose to smell, fingers to touch, ears to hear–a heart beating. This to me, is how a writer earns a daily wage. His wages then take the guise of treasures his heart can transfigure into a universe of thought that taps into other hearts, that causes a swirl in the depth of other souls, or that makes wings to sprout on leaden heels.
Sometimes not joy but rueful, poignant moments are my pick. Take what I earned once: On my walk home in my neighborhood, I caught two clumps of snowdrops–such tiny blossoms smaller than fingertips that do not look up but shyly droop close to black patches on the ground winter has frozen. That afternoon in the frosty wind, they trembled as if ready to turn away and run but how could they? For that poignant moment on seeing the wintry rain beat on the fragile snowdrop–as if pushing it to go home now, go to sleep–I earned my jornal, my daily wage.
Once on summer walk, the crackle of dried leaves just hit me both like the laughter of children and sobs long suppressed. Neither one of them would resolve the dryness, but I recalled how each does bring tears: laughter for joy, sobs for healing that comes with the release of a dammed-up pain. My jornal that day came as two haiku.
Fall has since shortened the day and the heart begins to crave for lost space that it doesn’t even recall which or where. I feel that most treasures have turned into mush so much so I wouldn’t be able to sift them off the ground. Yet I caught the dying day yesterday–so glorious in the gold of autumn it opened a flip side of serene heaven. Blades of grass coated in diadems of rain that carpet the lawns render royal walks poor by imitation. A burst of red maple against an inky blue sky humbled me, a soul bragging about her skill to recreate beauty in words.
I suppose I’m taking Job’s reflections to heart. I’d rather not gloss over each day and look beyond what’s there, right before me, or else fragile as is my breath one day “my eyes may never again see joy” to write. With what then will I compare the eternal joy, the ultimate wage I await?
Yet for now, as other eyes hanker to make the invisible visible, I put a tag on some moments of joy. Like on seeing the snowdrops, I paid myself $200 as my jornal.
What could have been yours?
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great take on the prompt – the anatomy
of want made me shiver – intense writing!
Thanks as always, Claudia, for your comments! I, too, was shivering even trembling as Iwrtoe last night from the spectre of the past in the prompt that forebodes our future if we don’t do “diligent counting”.
Love the way you wrote this poem, and how you focus on the stares at the end—a memorable way to close the piece.
But your choice of a picture prompt was so powerful I couldn’t turn away from the stares! It haunted me from the first to the last line like this poem just worte itself. Thank you!
What is the anatomy
of want — this is powerful.
Powerful!
Thanks, Louise! I don’t know where that thought came from–it was the rage the picture prompt it seemed had bottled up in the innocence of those four bodies but shooting out of those eyes. “Bodies” and “eyes”– I guess that’s where the phrase came from.
It’s as if we try to slice it, dice it, study it — and then see the stares and the rage. Well done.
“Slice, dice and study” the four boys in the picture and what do we uncover indeed. Thank you, Glynn!
Your counting so enhances the nothingness left in the blank hungry stares, left hoping… well done.
I had seen children waiting for their turn at soup lines but there was one where they had to call out their numbers. This was for the soup kitchen to know if those in line equalled the number of soup bowls prepared for a batch. The last number say 24 or the last of two dozen was the cut off. I had seen eyes the lit when taken in, fade and darken when made to wait, “rage with hunger” when farther off. Yet a glimmer of hope somehow sparked among some. The picture prompt perhaps recalled how I felt. Thank you for your comment.
Very nicely written. I love the way you use your words, Alegria, like little artifacts that each hold a history. “fissured by want…” “the rage of hunger” Liked it very much.
My words like “little artifacts that each hold a history”… wow! What words could say thank you more profoundly, succinctly, exactly! And I’m babbling in adverbs that won’t do! I do write from so much history like in this [icture prompt. I’ve stared at hunger in the face–of hare-lipped infants, babies with puffed up bodies or shrunken to old age from malnutrition, mothers whose breasts can’t juice milk also from malnutrition, babies made to sip from a pop bottle instead of milk, thus whiny with hunger. The rage of the four boys in my lines I guess is really mine because of my feeling of helplessness. Thank you so much for your uplifting words about my writing.
Wow. The way you begin with counting is amazing…how we do that in suffering, and point out the senselessness of hunger. God never intended it. May we line up with His heart and see His kingdom come–then everyone will be fed. Blessings.
Thank you, Melissa! Yes, with prayer that we “line up with His heart”, that He may keep us in His divine providence inspite of ourselves, that in His infinite goodness all will be fed.
That’s a profound piece – I could almost hear a child say the numbers out loud – a child facing adult struggles
thanks for sharing with One Shoot
Thanks to you! How it came to be “profound” is from the image itself–it drew out the “anatomy of hunger” waiting ot be written. Thanks again!
Wonderful thought provoking words.
Anita.
Thanks for coming by, Anita! And for your uplifting comments.
innocence the marrow
i like the use of the word marrow
Thank you! I think I meant ‘marrow’ to mean the true essence of those ‘youth’ that has been eaten up by hunger and want because of the world’s senselessness sometimes or maybe even oftentimes. (I’m sorry for this edit. Too sleepy last night when I felt I had to reply to your wonderful comment.)
thank you good
Granit taşlar Taşyap madencilik
Granit küp taşı
Thank you for your comment!