EARTH MEMORY

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Where do these ideas for poem forms come from? Last month a friend told me about Billy Collins and the paradelle. I love the fact he invented it with tongue firmly in cheek and got some pretty stinky reviews based on the poem he wrote. You can about it, and Collins' very funny poem, here.

So today's prompt, thanks NaPoWriMo, is to "write a “golden shovel.” This form was invented by Terrance Hayes in his poem, The Golden Shovel. The last word of each line of Hayes’ poem is a word from Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem We Real Cool. You can read Brooks’ poem by reading the last word of each line of Hayes’ poem".

Here's my golden shovel poem, using Lorine Niedecker's poem You are my friend which you can read here or by reading the last words in my poem. This one's for Ted.

Earth Memory

The trees that loved us with peaches you

picked each August are

gone now. Who knew my

missing them would be like mourning a friend

—the kind you

trust with every secret, bring

each soaring joy, each heartache, me

loving you loving me, peaches

blushed and

round, bringing to mind the

crazy joy of a first time high

as we toss pits in a bush

that gives us luscious cranberry

jam but nothing like the peaches falling from hands you

open like a prayer meant to carry

all you have to give. My

hands are distracted by, perhaps, a fishpole.

They cannot catch you

on land, in sky or water.

Instead, you lift my

spirit that was, till now, as worms

in the garden of soul, for you

find me, renew me, here in this patch

of earth memory where ghosts of trees my

father planted still abide, his boot

tamping the ground with

care, and I remember him as I watch your

hands trace imaginary peaches, mending

the trees’ absence with a kit

of your own making, nothing

for it but to reach out in

amazement for the gift of memory it

carries, nothing for it but

peaches, juicy, ripe, my

open mouth, your hand.

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