Chicken Scratch

Your desk is littered with paper,
a patchwork quilt
of scraps, note cards,
the ends of envelopes,

the pile ever changing
as work is finished and ideas
spring to life like fireworks on a summer night,
bright and fleeting.

Unless you capture them
in your chicken scratch handwriting,
they become dust,
all those thoughts of love and loss,

joy and pain, struggle and victory
blow away, a life lost
to anyone
but you.

About this poem

I have a mind like a steel sieve. I wish I could blame it on age, but alas, I’ve always been that way. I was as senile at 30 as I am at 57. So my life is a constant writing down of life and work. My desk is full of notes for work that come and go as projects get completes. I have two journals, one hand written, one on the computer, so I am never far from a journal, and ideas and writing and thoughts and feelings get caught as they happen.

I have a drawer full of Hallmark type cards that I am constantly refilling, so if I think of sending a card, I do it then, before the impetus is lost in the wind. I have a little digital audio recorder in my car, so when I am on long trips, I can talk my ideas and poems and drivel down.

It may be some sort of ADD thing, but it may be something else. We live in a world of distractions and interruptions. It takes a mindfulness not to let important things slip away. And by important, I mean love, passion, spiritualness….

So, I write my notes. And while I may seem scattered, should you see my desk or studio, I am far more whole than you might imagine.

Tom

PS – The picture was taken at the Rogers Store Museum in Surry County, Virginia. It’s right across from what was my grandfather’s farm, and my father was instrumental in developing and preserving the old country store that goes back to the 1800’s for others to enjoy and learn from. Not a pristine, too good to be true kind of museum, it captures the realness of a working store, with it’s piles and randomness and full-of-life collection of everything imaginable. A joy to visit.