#memorywriting

Beginnings. Is there ever such a thing for us? I feel as though we continue. Each step, each iteration, each experience is continuance. New to us, perhaps… and so the beginning. A new perspective a new chosen path on the journey but each decision with a past, a catalyst. This is another “beginning”— a new way for me to work through my grief and wrestle with my memories, good and bad. Journaling became very important for my wife and I after our son, Perrin, passed. We would sit for hours some evenings just writing. It was a need. It was a place to write God’s promises to us and for us to reconstruct the narrative of our time with Perrin. It was a place to emote when body could not sustain external manifestation. It helped me clear my mind by getting it out. Words I could not utter, but could write. Even now having difficulty with words that tell us of loss. Venting frustration with norms. Expectations of rebound. Faces telling me it’s time to let go. A best friend telling me that someday I have to move on… But I won’t. This experience has forever changed me. My identity. My spirit. It will continue to inform my living until I die. So, if it is to be my companion, death, then, must be used.

I ran across the term “Narrative Poetry” in an article on Citizen Artist by Alice Lovelace. In the article she uses Marie MacLean definition: "...how we organize our verbal thinking...essential to how we develop memory, communicate ideas and learn. Narrative performance...involves an intimate relationship which, like all such relationships, is at once a co-operation and a contest, an exercise in harmony and a mutual display of power." While I’m working with poetry and not performance, I find the same power play—past memory and present life. Both must work together in harmony to create meaning and continue.

           My writing is constructing a narrative. Kathleen Gilbert, researcher in trauma studies, suggests that by making order out of disorder, organizing your experience, or creating narratives behind object, we cope with our trauma. I found these ideas resonating with Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery, although Herman says that reconstruction does not address the social (183). Herman’s notes about the pervasiveness of  the experience in future life and decisions gave me more courage to address the event, “alternat[ing] between feeling and numb and reliving the event” “refus[ing] to be buried.”

As I read through Donna Henes’ book Dressing Our Wounds in Warm Clothes, her dream charts inspired me. She wove these writings throughout her documentary. Each hold significance. I thought I would give it a try. I used to have a very active dream life but needed to squelch it because of night terrors. I now have more trouble remembering them after I wake up. Sometimes it’s a narrative, sometimes there’s an entire symphony (not based on any I know). If I woke up with a song playing in my head I would hum it and hum it until I could jot down notation. I have since lost those random pieces of paper and honestly, they probably would make little sense to me now. Similarly, I decided to jot down anything I could remember, flashes of color, movement, people. Odd reconstructions, really, but some connected. Fledglings is one of those pieces relating in my mind to infant mortality, like young beautiful chicks just starting to show their color, their potential, bought at a store by God and taken to His mansion in glory. Parents uncertain of what had just transpired. It’s how I feel in a way, but my subconscious interpreted it in vision and sound as a unique metaphor.

           Charting my dreams has been challenging and frustrating. A few nuggets come once a week or every other week, but sometimes the dreams slip through. For instance this morning I awoke from a dream I had just flipped a page and read a four line poem. Beautiful, I thought. I wonder who wrote it. No one yet… I realized this and knew I needed to wake up and write it, but when I woke up I could only scribble the last few words and I am unsure if it was accurate “turning to sob and couples ache.” My process merging in mind. Narrative Poetry and Dream Charting becoming one. It was an interesting and exciting discovery. Now if only I could record my dreams…

cloud breaks

written one sleepless night. wrestling with thought and memory. formulating narrative poetry of past and future with my son.

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the cloud breaks the sun makes the ground shakes for the mourning,

the  day was bright and clear the feeling fresh

and faithful many reasons to relish.

Tired in well doing. To rest for a moment that will help the shakes.

Shakes.

The town is far but not too far where fresh fruit will bear upon next visit.

The time was short but full of favor.

The time was long, life short. Life long. Long life. Long meaning

to extend beyond the verified time of lacking in duration short being less than long.

There’s not much else to take. Views point to make.

Each day, journey makes a break from every shadow a new form take.

Sun shines and so must I. sitting on the grass to form a new memory.

/Memory a funny thing. Recall, repose, refact upon imagining, changing? Maybe?

True to holder cherished. Around a corner around the room.

Chase around the pole too soon. Stop and flight then run a face. Laughter abound.

Smart. Curious. Problem solving. The smallest of tasks thought through.

Remembering the first of the season. Under chair instead of around.

/Where? Sound. Vision. Strange thoughts. Short. It was short. Sitting on the grass.

Running through the leaves. Hydrangea. Blue. Soft. Fresh. Plume.

Red stripped smile.

The nation changing for short long. Short. Long. Long.

It must be long. Hunting for a new reason a new tell to dispel

the short.

Swing the fear away, but back, arrives with cloud break and ground shake.

Awake to darkness. Sitting still. Lost in thought.

/Thought a crossing of paths. Light under squares moving with thought. I-O-P- last for just a moment. Break the darkness break the night. Nights those endless times with nothing to see or do.

Isolating.

Nothing near, but break, break the cloud, torrent of fear, Memory light.

Long. High and clear. Uncontrolled. Best of sonic undulation. Tongued through teeth the sound eludes til bright a sharp and brilliant appear. Long.

/Three. Three vocable designations. Appellations. Short. Piercing memory and mind. Long. Holder brought to next. Fill my cup. Drink the glass and long. Must save a sip for dark.

Keep the pages turning flip. Thin. Small. Black and white. Long.

Breath. Breathe. Deep slow long. Not short. Endure.

Turn to breath. Breathe. Breath deep. Keep. intake.

Flash. Move. Make. Rotating round and blue.

Green continues on the line, persisting long and clear in melody.

Memory. Keen and crisp. Soft. Calculating turn the pieces to.

Move movement eyes lock souls move. Long it must be long. Turn thin.

Embrace.

Song in voice will never fade. Hum. Hum. Hum. Hum. When hum numb. Short.

Savoring  /Savor. To linger on sensation. long. Short lived. Memory fades and then renewed. Darkness then grey then right and light. Sleep escapes the light.

sleep escapes the night.

Upstairs is reeling not to fade. How long. Short? Could it be short to time and face remain. Go. Must go. Face to face. Long. Light. Cloud breaks.

Song the night away. .. short. So short. Thin turning. Migrant memory. Moving. Incompatible, unusual, oppugnant. Not belonging. Shot. Let it be short.

marked. Lost stamp, yet stamped a new.

/stamps you find at store. Ink of social marking. Product of beams. Towfold pillars strong.

Light the second emitted waves of thought and pattern.

Black. Dark. Repugnant.. ash of mouth.

Full resistant. Remit. Confusion. Light under weight. Shadows resist. Recurrent. Replenish. Memory. Memory. Memory poor. Short. Long. Forget. Relive. Revisit. Black. Cloud break, corn grows. Roots. Flip thin. Black and white. Red. Red will not move. Long. Red. Expunge. Long. Red. won’t fade. Fateful. Turn thin. Faith. Fresh. Sweet. Recall. River running sweet and pure. Fruit to fill. Hum. Hum . hum .hum. hum.. long. Always.

Seven. Seven fresh faithful fruits. Full. Rivers dance and dart and move.