3 Min read

Poetry for emergencies

Poems as gifts

1 Book rec

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The food hadn’t come yet. In fact, we hadn’t ordered.

I cried when I learned that my friend had nearly died. She looked good, if a bit quiet. Her husband was telling us what happened. A lot changes in a short time. In a year, in a month, in an instant.

Why am I telling you? Because every moment is precious, each interaction, even this short letter to you. I found a classic poem to mail to her. Snail mail. Holding and reading it in her hands is better than sending a link or a digital copy by Email.

Poetry is meant to be read aloud. But it would be a bit creepy to show up at her door and recite verse, unless you’re the Door-to-Door poet, which is a thing by the way.

As I sat next to her in the restaurant booth, distant words flickered in and out in the back of my mind, a sort of faint neon light. I listened to her husband talk, watching the pain in his face as he related details. I could hear the clatter of plates and flatware, laughter from other tables, the bustle of waiters.

This alternate reality persisted, like I was a stranger in my body.

I will share the poem with you.

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Here’s the catch. You may know it’s the first meal but you will not know it’s the last.

This kind of forever Thomas describes at the end is a moment of the heart. One you can stretch into forever because the heart knows no limit.

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I like the poet’s use of italics when he shares what makes him happy. The bold lines are a kind of thesis for the poem. And the red text bleeds love. The right justified lines are over there, ahead of us, pushed to the end of the margin where verse does not usually reach. It’s visual the letters and words, on the page. Thomas paints with words.

Does Thomas’s restaurant “make me happy?” Because it also makes me sad. Which is how I was feeling with my friend, as I listened to the shocking story. I could not stop thinking about the restuarant of first meals. And, the restaurant of last meals.

Maybe the happy part is the first meals and in the forever, or the food you go from hating to enjoying. Maybe it’s the person you’re with who makes the food you once hated something you enjoy.

Maybe it’s not knowing it’s the last time that makes you happy.

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FOOTNOTES

*Iain S. Thomas. Every Word You Cannot Say. (2019). The poem above appears on a left page (p. 66) with an illustration in red ink of a plate setting with a thin white line sketch of two fish head-to-tail on the plate. Thomas creates images with his words, carefully arranged on the page. At times the words are grouped into distinct shapes, such as a hand. They delight and surprise. I share more with photos here.

*Door to door poetry exists?! Who knew there was such a thing. You do now, dear reader. Here is a link to the world’s first door-to-door poet and his latest or last blog post this past winter with a recording by the BBC. Ok, he’s probably not the world’s first, but he may well be the world’s only. In ancient times I imagine the bard, the minstrel, the griot and all the traveling storytellers spoke in verse and went from town to town, village to village, royal court to the lane. Door-to-door verse is an oral tradition and a human tradition.

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