Greetings, friends. (LVIII)

Greetings, friends. In the course of clearing her library, we found a slim notebook, containing a couple dozen pages, filled with our mother’s handwriting.

The title page reads: “Geese and Other Friends — poems by Sharon Ann Burnston.”

I will be honest. Most of these are not good poems. A few are in free verse, the easiest by far of all poetic forms to abuse. More are in genuine blank verse, which is at least a little better, though not much, unless you are Shakespeare or Tennyson.

My mother was neither. While the poems do read with her distinctive voice and diction, my mother was an awkward human being, and many of these poems are deeply awkward. There is one about me, which I have alluded to earlier, and another about Adah, and one about her therapist, that all demonstrate such a questionable sense of personal boundaries that it makes me wonder seriously if my mother had some kind of personality disorder.

However — however! — my mother delighted in esoteric lyrical forms, and when she adopted their disciplined rigor, her native gift for meter and phrasing got its chance to shine. There are a few gems in that vein I would like to share.

The first is a villanelle, the best known modern example of which is Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” Here is my mother’s essay into that form.

A Villanelle for Winter

The geese are roosting in the snows.
They seem at home in winter white.
They think the thoughts an old goose knows.

Except for orange beak and toes,
They blend in with the icy bright.
The geese are roosting in the snows.

Sometimes they strive to strike a pose.
They stretch their wings, but not for flight.
They think the thoughts an old goose knows.

Inside the goose hut, no one goes;
They could be warmer if they might.
The geese are roosting in the snows.

They swam the brook before it froze.
They like to sit with it in sight,
And think the thoughts an old goose knows.

Low in the pines, a sunset glows.
Flakes filter down as it draws night.
The geese are roosting in the snows,
Thinking thoughts an old goose knows.

Say what you will about geese, this is IMO a pretty good villanelle. There are at least three other poems about geese in this notebook, hence the volume’s title. Mom kept a pair of geese on the property for some years, until they were mauled (presumably) by foxes, and then a couple more, until they too were absconded by the fox. My mother loved those geese.

The geese gave her such satisfaction that was it was useless to protest, as I did repeatedly, that the goose is a foul-tempered creature on the very best of days, and that the only fit place for a goose is on a serving plate. My mother was dismissive of these opinions, claiming that I had once been chased by a hissing goose around the Colonial Pennsylvania Plantation when I was about head high to one, and that I was biased. I don’t remember the incident. She may have been right.

The next poem is a triolet, which was a popular lyrical style up until the late 19th century, after which it disappeared, like Atlantis into the deep, without a trace. I said my mother loved esoteric poetic forms.

It’s Nothing (a triolet)

You really mustn’t feel too bad.
Don’t think of it. I’ll be okay.
Although you say it makes you sad,
You really mustn’t feel too bad.
And, yes, you acted like a cad.
I think you’d better go away.
You really mustn’t feel too bad.
Don’t think of it. I’ll be okay.

This triolet is far and away the best poem she wrote about my stepfather. The less said about the others, the better.

On a folded sheet of lined paper stuck inside the cover is a poem that is scrawled rather than neatly handwritten, almost more deletions and amendments, than actual written verse. It is titled “Cleaning House,” and it is undated, but it was probably written 20 or 25 years ago. The first verse goes like this:

The time had come to organize my life.
The hinges of the door of the armoire
Stripped out because I’d tried to stuff too much
Inside it. I have banks of filing bins
That bulge with papers I desire to save
But cannot lay my hands on when I need.
The attic and the barn are just as bad.
I’ve fabric saved for someday when there’s time
To do some project, but as years go by
My somedays are beginning to run out.

As fate would have it, Brian disassembled that very armoire this afternoon, commenting as he did so that the hinges were missing some screws. I helped him carry the pieces out to his van.

Oh, Mom. She knew. She knew! And yet… she left it all unorganized anyway. Herein the poet exemplifies the two souls that war within us all constantly, the aspiring, and the inconstant, or, perhaps, the incapable. Thanks a lot, Mom.

Of all of the other poems in Geese and Other Friends, the best verse, or maybe the most accessible, is an instance of that great vice of the Burnston family, the parody.

Stopping by Robert Frost’s House on a Summer Afternoon

Whose house this is, I think I know.
A modest house, it does not show
That a great poet lived here,
And not so very long ago.

If he returned, he’d think it queer
To see how all the tourists steer
Into the lot, and hit the brake,
And haul all out all their camera gear.

To photograph it for his sake,
And then an extra snapshot take,
A cherished souvenir to keep
Of the pilgrimage they make.

His poetry was pure and deep.
It lifts their hearts and makes them weep,
While mine just puts my friends to sleep.
While mine just puts my friends to sleep.

What was it Faulkner once said about love? “You don’t love because: you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults.”

I love you, Mom.

If you’re reading this, heed today’s lesson, and don’t let your carefully crafted verse fall into the mocking hands of your callous heirs. Au revoir!