That Last July

A poem underneath some stuff

There’s a poem here, down at the bottom. I wanted to include it with my last story (Facing the Sun), which is where it belongs, but I wasn’t done picking at it.

I can tell when to stop editing a story or an essay, but I’m bad at knowing when to leave a poem alone.

Poetry is kind of like painting—with a few minutes, one or two colours, and some broad strokes, something can be left on a canvas. Other times, painters might take days, months, or even years to finish something.

I took several creative writing classes during my undergrad years, even though they didn’t count toward my degree. I’ve been taught by accomplished writers and poets like Patrick Friesen and Genni Gunn. I still have the poems I wrote for their classes. Patrick always asked for hard copies because he liked to mark our work with a dark pencil. He often circled lines from my poems and wrote comments like “too prosey.” This was my most common blunder.

Sometimes, he also wrote things like “very good poem.”

Most of what I wrote back then was probably terrible, but I was willing to be imperfect. I was willing to make embarrassing mistakes. I was willing to hand in sheaves of poetry I wasn’t proud of—syrupy stanzas that weren’t finished or ready to be read—because as much as I wanted to be seen as perfect, I wanted something else more: I wanted to learn.

Writing is a process, and it’s an art. It takes time and work to uncover the hard, clear stone underneath. Feeling blocked, getting stuck, abandoning your words and then returning to rescue them—these struggles are important. They are part of the work, and doing the work still means something.

I think.

I’ve stayed up way too late with this poem (and many others). I’ve pecked at the keyboard for way too long, ignoring a clenched jaw and hunger and numb legs and backaches and I don’t recommend being this obsessive.

But at one time, I had teachers who were poets. And they were also human beings who wrote and taught from a place that was real. Even though I never learned how or when to walk away from a poem, I learned so many other things from them, from others, from being willing to try.

This poem is about memories and how grief alters them. It’s also about the last birthday I spent with my sister.

That Last July

You visit in fragments¬—
a shade of purple
cut-off shorts
a swinging ponytail

the word sister.

I float here
where my feet have never reached the bottom
of my grief. 
Untethered among the debris, 
bumping against the remains 
of that last July 
when we bobbed across the dark, glittering lake—
thighs slung over squeaky vinyl inner tubes
cupped hands disappearing into water
the toss of your face toward the sun
laughter rising like bubbles.

The years have eroded my memories
down to moments
separated from their storylines,
blown away from the shores of clarity.
The pieces of you I couldn’t save
drift off
like flotsam
flashing along the horizon
blurry, distant 

threatening 

to sink out of sight.

*Cover photo is an image of some of my poetry drafts layered on top of a photo by Mona Eendra (via Unsplash).