Archive
11/18/11
Doodles
Tonight, as I and my son, my namesake, Rummage through the quiet, desolate, partially lit house My parents no longer inhabit, Hoping to find a few evocative mementos he might cherish, We come upon the desk in my mother's bedroom, Its drawers brimming with her address books And black-bound "Daily Appointment" calendars.
And as we flip through the pages of a few, We discover, to our gratifying surprise, Amidst her voluminous notes, reminders, to-do lists, And extensive menus for holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries, A multitude of doodles, varying in size, design, complexity — Vast skies filled with never-before-mapped constellations of fancy.
When, I wonder, did they first emerge, surface, Those intensely intricate, intimate, sensual renderings, Those throbbing, pulsing, breathing, mellifluous creations Consisting of sinuous, curvaceous lines, in pencil and ink, Coalescing into efflorescences almost too beautiful to bear? Could they have begun even before Charlotte was born?
Both of us stare at those fragile, precious snow crystals, Which, were you to breathe on them, Might simply disappear into the thinnest of gossamer airiness, Those most amazingly artistic, dramatic explosions, Which she likely unleashed while talking on the phone, Conversing, dialoguing, listening, for long stretches, When, in fact, she was retreating into the books' pages, Withdrawing into her deepest, most secret sanctuaries, Indulging her rapturous passion Whenever her right-brain-directed hand took flight, Hoping to capture her freely soaring daydreams, fantasies, Those undulating, meandering, labyrinthine doodles — Threads, vines, tendrils, curlicues, filigree, arabesques — My mother brought to life, from nonexistence, Whenever her vision dictated that they should appear, For no other reason than to satisfy her aesthetic sensibility . . . Those legacies she left me Not only in her books but in my breathing bloodstream, Her poetry of continuous gray, red, blue, and green lines, Poems presaging my poetry, As though they were waiting for me to bring them to fruition, Transmute them into lines equally fluid, Weave them into strings of words, Lines of internally rhyming free verse . . . Those majestic manifestations of her poetic spirit Flowing into my soul even before I was born, So that I might fulfill her deepest need for poetry, Which I absolutely know that she knew, her entire life, She was longingly trying to compose, in doodle after doodle.
11/18/11
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