Wednesday
For a change of pace and a little lightness, I share today a Marge Piercy poem that a friend alerted me to. It’s an extended metaphor that does what poetry does best, which is to use figuration to expand our view of ourselves and the world around us.
In this case, we are invited to think of ourselves as a bus station waiting room through which innumerable people pass. Some are like the perfume of peonies, some like the musky scent of the cosmos, some like clumsy moving men, some like bullies who walk over us (leaving the imprint of footprints our chests), some like elusive warblers, some like striking falcons. The poem gets me to look back over my life and relive multiple encounters.
I love the final stanza, which sums up three major impacts these encounters can have: some almost destroy us, some renew us, and some simply take up permanent residence. While Tennyson’s Ulysses proclaims, “I am a part of all that I have met,” Piercy makes the opposite point: all that we meet become a part of us.
Some more than others.
The Visible and the In-
Some people move through your life
like the perfume of peonies, heavy
and sensual and lingering.
Some people move through your life
like the sweet musky scent of cosmos
so delicate if you sniff twice, it’s gone.
Some people occupy your life
like moving men who cart off
couches, pianos and break dishes.
Some people touch you so lightly you
are not sure it happened. Others leave
you flat with footprints on your chest.
Some are like those fall warblers
you can’t tell from each other even
though you search Petersen’s.
Some come down hard on you like
a striking falcon and the scars remain
and you are forever wary of the sky.
We all are waiting rooms at bus
stations where hundreds have passed
through unnoticed and others
have almost burned us down
and others have left us clean and new
and others have just moved in.