The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Sun 12/30/2007)

Dutiful

How did I get so dutiful? Was I always that way?
Going around as a child with a small broom and dustpan,
sweeping up dirt I didn't make,
or out into the yard with a stunted rake,
weeding the gardens of others
– the dirt blew back, the weeds flourished, despite my efforts –
and all the while with a frown of disapproval
for other people's fecklessness, and my own slavery.
I didn't perform these duties willingly.
I wanted to be on the river, or dancing,
but something had me by the back of the neck.
That's me too, years later, a purple-eyed wreck,
because whatever had to be finished wasn't, and I stayed late,
grumpy as a snake, on too much coffee,
and further on still, those groups composed of mutterings
and scoldings, and the set-piece exhortation:
Somebody ought to do something!
That was my hand shooting up.

But I've resigned. I've ditched the grip of my echo.
I've decided to wear sunglasses, and a necklace
adorned with the gold word no,
and eat flowers I didn't grow.
Still, why do I feel so responsible
for the wailing from shattered houses,
for birth defects and unjust wars,
and the soft, unbearable sadness
filtering down from distant stars?

Margaret Atwood

***************************************

:hi:

RL

Indeed I have...

Thank you RL. Perfect poem for this weekend and for today. :hug:

I've been in such an "Atwood mood" lately.

:hi:

good poem retro

great Margaret Atwood. I think she used me as a model when she wrote this poem. Far too responsible growing up, and now striving to resign from lifes mundane duties! LOL!

:hi:

btw . . . red just might be your color! :rofl:

I know a number of people this poem seems to describe very, very well. :(

:hug:
Hugs for each and every one of you.

Chain me not to plow.

Very nice and very appropriate to what I've been going thru. Been very depressed, dropped out from being a peace activist because there were many people who, altho they agreed, would not spend any of their time to help. Too big a load to carry with only a handful of people and all of us with our hands up all the time to take care of what needed to be done. Got burned out and the health began to deteriorate, my blood pressure increased with my anger and fatigue. So I resigned. Also needed to resign from keeping up with all the news and all the things I learned in retrospect about this country because it was causing me anxiety I cannot handle. I stopped all of it. Just stopped. It was only supposed to be a temporary sabbatical.

Now I've stopped everything and am still depressed because I'm not doing anything but I no longer have the strength, nor do I have the desire to be around people.

Thanx for finding words for what I've been feeling but could not find.

This should be in Webster's as the very definition of what poetry strives to do!

How vivid, and nice...

It's not me, though!

Still, I enjoyed it...

Thank you...:hug:

the woman described in this poem.

And then, fortunately, I did get the strength to resign, spelled d-i-v-o-r-c-e.

I don't wear anything with words on it, but I'm in charge of my own life and my own politics.

Ain't life grand?!

LOVE this poem. Thanks, RL. You, my friend, are a prince!