It's weird and affirming all at once when experiences or habits you thought were unique to you and somehow not to be disclosed are described by others. No experience is replicated in total, of course, but this poem by Phillip Booth is strangely familiar. Here are excerpts:
Adding it Up
My mind’s eye opens before
the light gets up.
...
I give some ...
passing thought to the point
that if I hadn’t turned poet
I might well be some other
sort of accountant.
...
...
I seesaw on the old cliff, trying
to balance things out: job,
wife, children, myself.
...
...
My mind’s eye opens before
my body is ready for its
first duty
The rest of the poem is here.Wild Rose Reader is hosting Poetry Friday Roundup this week.
7 comments:
Hi Yat-Yee, thanks for sharing this. There is something affirming about knowing you're not the only one!
Love this--
"I seesaw on the old cliff, trying
to balance things out"
So familiar. When one of my children was tiny, I believe I described to a friend how I felt as "balancing over a pit of vipers and trying desperately not to fall in." A little drama-queen, I admit, but it was how life felt to me at the time!
Hi Martha and Fiddler:
pit of vipers. eek.
But I know what you mean.
Thanks for coming by and commenting. And thanks for the selection. I enjoyed this.
I like the reference to accountants, who also balance books, Saul Steiberg, a visual punster, and turning poet.
Yes, I agree. How fun that a poet is "another sort of accountant." If I had to pick, I would pick YOUR kind!
Who would've consider poets and accountants to be similar?
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