Curiosity ~ Lucidity ~ Humanity
Last night I again assembled
All the dead I’ve loved—
Father, grandfather, uncle,
Grandmother. In dreams I walk and talk with
Them again, though father’s once
Clear face has blurred with time,
Like an old photograph, and I have lost
The sound of grandfather’s voice,
And my Uncle George only appears
Once in a great while. He appears to say
Something, but I never know what it is.
And grandmother remains, in dreams as she was,
Arthritic hands dangling like claws
From the arm rests of her wheelchair.
So kind, so ready to comfort,
But, like grandfather, voiceless
To me now. Soon it will no longer matter.
I know that. I wonder if
My children will dream of me as I dream of
All those who went before me--
Father, uncle, grandfather, grandmother.
Will they wake to tears,
Saying, Grandfather, I am so sorry?
There wasn’t enough time to say
All the things, all the things
I wish I’d said, all the things I never
Knew I needed to say? There wasn’t
Enough time, Father, to hear and remember
All your stories, the stories of youth
And war, of family and friends.
No one, I suppose, ever has
Enough time to say a life.
It takes eternity.
Bio-Fragment of Stephen Turner: When I was a child in Indiana, my grandfather would often read the poems of James Whitcomb Riley to me, and read them with great enthusiasm. I loved his readings, but never imagined I could write anything "poetic." Years later, as a junior in high school, I started to copy out poems like Poe's "To Helen" or "Let me not to the marriage of true minds . . . " and send them to girls because I discovered that girls liked poetry and, well, I liked girls. In college, I began to memorize poems I loved, and--you guessed it--recite them to girls I was interested in, which was almost all girls. By my junior year, I was writing poems of my own, often using words like thou, thine, or 'twas. Poetic words. I was an English major and took a creative writing class that year from my advisor, Dr. Viola Wendt, and she insisted I drop that sort of 19th century poetic diction, and she also made me realize that I had an ear for the musicality of poetry, for meter, rhythm, rhyme, assonance. I've been writing poetry since then, but it really all began with an effort to impress girls.