prose poem

I won't post many poems here, mostly for copyright reasons. Here's one I got (wrote) a couple of days ago at a freewrite in Milton, Delaware. And I have to say goodbye to Carol, who is a good friend and a gentle teacher.

Conversations on departure

I have to say goodbye to many. I realize I've said goodbye before, too much. Some I’ve seen again, most I haven’t. I’ve seen the ones I want to see. I’m the person who can get pissed off, hang up, and never speak to you again. I like to go away. Leaving makes me happy. I left my parents for the army, scared and sarcastic. I left the army for college, older, maybe smarter, still sarcastic. I left college for California, and years later reversed right back to the East Coast, right back through time. It felt like an adventure every single time. I liked every single mile. I liked saying goodbye. You'd think I'd be sad. You'd think I'd be afraid. But I like to go. I like to say goodbye. I like it.

My new school is in the news.

My school in Abu Dhabi holds its first gradution Thursday, June 12, 2008. You can read the story here: ECAE graduation.

My Fatal Flaw

Procrastination. There it is for everyone to see. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with everything I need to do that I just do nothing. Or I read. Reading has always been my comfortable place. It’s so hard for me to close a book without having finished it, so usually, if I have something I need to do, it’s better to not even start reading.

The opposite happened with The Great Gatsby. I was supposed to read it last month (really, I decided to read it), and I coerced my sister, Karen, into reading it with me. She said she had hated it in high school, but she would read it with me, and then went out and convinced some of her friends to read it, too. So the month ended, and Karen was the only one who read it! (Well done, Karen.) I got so bogged down in the beauty of the language that I had to keep stopping and making notes and stealing lines for poems. I was carrying it around everywhere with me for a couple of weeks, and reading a paragraph or two at a time, but eventually I had to lighten my purse and took it out. Now I can’t find it. It’s somewhere in the maw of my house, where we’re getting ready for a yard sale and a realtor’s visit, so you can imagine the craziness. That’s not the only book that I can’t find.

Eventually, I’ll find The Great Gatsby and finish it. Maybe on the plane to Abu Dhabi!