This Poetry Business
There was a time when I did most of my work by telephone. I knew some customers by voice but mostly by a flat manila jacket with a seven-digit code scratched across the top edge.
With a hands-free headset comfortably in place, I could talk to one customer and email another at the same time. I sorted mail while I recited lesser known clauses of a contract to a disappointed policyholder. And when it came to it, I hit the Mute button on the phone and muttered inaudible responses to a caller’s ignorance or indignation.
When everything that needed saying was done, I disconnected.
From the call. From the caller.
There was always another drawer lined with those manila uniforms waiting for my attention. Disconnecting wasn’t so much apathetic disregard for another’s plight but a skill perceived as necessary for emotional survival in a work day steeped in pain and anger and loss.
::
Today things don’t work quite the same.
I know my customers by face. I stand with them in their mess and look them in the eye. I don’t catalog their voices, but I know them. When we talk on the phone I can tell when their throats catch or when they grow hoarse from too much time sorting in the soot.
Tainted water from their basement might be soaking into my socks. Or I might smell smoke late into the evening, pulled into my skin from my time amongst their ashes. It’s more difficult to disconnect when I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with them, when they’ve held the other end of my tape measure, or even when I’ve caught a piece of them at the edge of the camera’s viewfinder.
But maybe, that disconnection isn’t so necessary. Perhaps I do better work because, in a way, the people come home with me.
::
A few days ago I sat across the kitchen table with a couple, a little older than my parents. Just nights before, they awoke to flames not far from their bedroom. Formalities out of the way, I set down my pen, turned off the tape recorder and chin in my hand, just listened. She told the story of a house fire, but she also told a bigger story of their life — their hardships, their triumphs, their dreams. Hidden in her words was a another story altogether.
She eats fear with morning coffee
chunks of ash, black in her mouth
worries cinders
between delicate fingers
mixed with a trickle
from her cheek to spread
on burnt toast
I can’t tell you their story, though I so want for you to know it. I can’t introduce you to these folks, but I so want you to know them. But I can let her story work its way inside me, and I can weave just a few words around to bear witness to a woman who knows fear and pain, joy and loss, and faces it with a sense that it’s as ordinary as breakfast.
That’s what poetry lets us do.
::
Join me? Starting next Wednesday, I’ll be leading a four-week book club at Tweetspeak Poetry on David Whyte’s The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America. You can read about that here. (There’s still time to pick up the book at your library or bookstore, but please, feel free to chime in on the discussion even if you’re not reading the book, and even if you’re not all that into this poetry business. You’ll make me feel better, and that’s worth something, right?)
And in case you missed it before, I’m exploring poetry as part of my work (and having a little fun) at a new site run by the Word Adjuster (which is, um, me). I’d love to have you stop by PoetiClaims for a short read.
“I stand with them in their mess and look them in the eye.” Incarnating Christ. That’s what you do.
Not really into this poetry business, (it pretty much scares me) but just had to say this was a beautiful post. You know, your usual.
2012/03/01 at 2:22 PM
oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh – this is so good. You need to write scripts for movies Lyla. Because I felt like that was what I was doing when I read this, watching a movie. You make me want to be better. I have never written poetry (and frankly writing poetry scares me) but I wasn’t a writer until someone hired me to be one first. I read a lot of blogs because I feel like I am in writing boot camp right now and this made me want to stand up and applaud.
And I am still thinking about that cat story. Did I understand right, that your cat went through a cycle in the dishwasher?
2012/03/01 at 3:36 PM
Oh, Shelly! I’m sorry to report (and I must be careful now, speaking ill of the departed) that my cat did not go through a dishwasher cycle, but it was darned tempting that day to close the door and turn it on. She had to be put down because she was sick.
She mostly just inserted herself into every place she didn’t belong and took over the house. But apparently, that’s exactly what she was made to do.
Thank you for your kind words here. And I’m with you — I read pretty extensively and try to learn as I go.
2012/03/01 at 3:40 PM
I can feel how much comfort and solace you bring to the people your meet in your work, just simply by putting down your pen and listening. You are so, so good at that, Lyla. Me and my big blurty mouth could learn a whole lot from you. I wish we lived closer so I could sit across the kitchen table from you and listen (maybe even without interrupting…but no guarantees there).
I am sorry to read about your dear cat. Gosh, pets – so much joy, so much heartache. We have fish and snails now – a little less heartache there, I’ve found.
2012/03/01 at 8:35 PM
I am speechless at these words. wow. You grab my heart.
2012/03/01 at 8:50 PM
I never thought I’d almost be brought to tears reading about fire damage and insurance claims….Lyla, you have such a gift. And what a powerful way to honor someone by writing something in their name. “I see you, you exist, this is important.”
That what a witness is. and does…
2012/03/01 at 9:09 PM
Life…as ordinary as breakfast.
Yes.
And no.
Now I’m going to be up late thinking, Lyla. Thanks.
2012/03/01 at 9:40 PM
This is so beautiful, Lyla. The way you traverse that tension between letting their story work inside of you and respecting their privacy…I understand this one so very well. I’ll probably be eavesdropping on your book club, though too stretched for time right now to actively participate (or read another book). It sounds like it will be lovely.
2012/03/02 at 12:13 PM
I like knowing a bit more of the backstory behind that poem. I was longing for that when I first read it. Just right.
2012/03/02 at 2:58 PM
I don’t know who Johnny Horton is and I’ve never heard his song… but after spending time with you in that horrid, nose burning smell… I know those folks will never “forget you.” That’s how we feel after we’ve read your words, Lyla… I can only imagine what it would be like to be served by you.
2012/03/02 at 3:50 PM
Patricia:
Johnny Horton is a country singer, best known for 2 songs, “The Battle of New Orleans” and “North to Alaska”. As a fan of CW, I have never considered him a balladeer.
Paul (Lyla’s Dad)
2012/03/02 at 4:23 PM
I’d been waiting for Dad to comment on the LP. It took Pat to coax him out…
Here’s the song, Pat. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1PbMoa-rfs
I think it feels a little like the other side of Adele’s Someone Like You.
2012/03/02 at 4:38 PM
Thanks Paul and Lyla… I’ll go listen now. Would this be the wrong time to admit I don’t know what CW is? (Please tell me you just meant CM and I’ll feel a whole lot better ; )
Love, Adele
2012/03/02 at 4:53 PM
I think Radio Dad is referring to Country Western.
And then I have to ask, what is CM?
2012/03/02 at 4:54 PM
It’s not so much Radio Dad as it is fan of Country Music. And for me it is Country from the 5os, 60s, 70s. Very little of today’s Country does much for me. Hank, Merle and George, the Statler Brothers, Ray Price and Tammy are where I’m at. Perhaps CM is Country Music or shorthand for Contemporary Christian Music that I often see referred to as CCM (and not always in a positive light.
In 1840 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we fought the bloody British in the town of New Orleans
We fired our guns and the British kept a comin’
There wasn’t nigh as many as there was awhile ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
The first verse and chorus from Battle of New Orleans
(from memory so it may not be totally correct)
Dad/Paul
2012/03/02 at 8:01 PM
Could we add a little Johnny Cash? Living so close to Motown, I’d have to say I was more influenced by blues and soul. But, having led worship for 15 years, I’m familiar with a few of those CCM folks too.
Now, back to you, Lyla. I’m in the middle of a bday party for the leaper and there are 6 6th grade girls running like a pack of wild banshees through my house for a sleepover tonight. Maybe I should turn off Adele and play a little CW… that should calm them down.
2012/03/02 at 8:29 PM
I think yous guys are on the same page. I wouldn’t dare speak for Dad (at least not where he can hear me) but I’m thinking he’d be just find stepping into that ring of fire.
And banshees singing Adele? It’s no wonder you’re dorking around on the computer. I just got all my guys out of the house and it’s nice and quiet here…
2012/03/02 at 8:32 PM
Well, here in the midwest that might be construed as Country Music =)
Can we still be friends? Paul?
2012/03/02 at 8:21 PM
Sure can. I should have included Johnny in my Hall of Fame. Russell Moore at “Moore to the Point” had an interesting piece on Johnny Cash (he would have been 80 last month). Stepping into a ring of fire is one thing but I’m not so hot on “falling into a “Ring of Fire”.
Paul
2012/03/02 at 9:53 PM
Oh Mercy, Country Music. One fond memory of Paul moving out of the house when I was high school was that he took that old 45RPM Record Player and his Awful Kitty Wells, Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell records with him! Between Grandma Edna’s Saturday Afternoon Opera with Milton Cross and Paul’s Milk House Country, the Music milieu at the Willingham house was dreadful. Its still rock and roll with me!
2012/03/03 at 7:47 PM
Lyla, I think I would have a lot of fun in your family. These two are a hoot. My husband is a rocker and he would quiz me on all the rock bands so i wouldn’t embarass myself (him). After I told him I had 3 Karen Carpenter albums memorized… well, there was… a kind of hush in the room. Thirty years later though … he still likes it when I sing.
Cute poem Uncle Weird… Lucy is one lucky girl. =)
2012/03/03 at 10:04 PM
Speaking of Poetry
I sometime write little poems for my grandkids for their birthdays. Here’s one for
Lucy on her 13th.
Hi Lucy
Since you have just entered the realm known as the teens
I thought you might be interested in the musings of and old
man about why we count the way we do.
I have always wondered why we don’t have oneteen and
twoteen in our counting system. I think I have the answer
explained in the little limerick below.
Many mysteries are still unknown to man
but you will find its all part of a plan
how to explain elevens and twelves
its purely for the sake of ourselves
to avoid teenagers as long as we can!
2012/03/03 at 7:54 PM
I really love this, Lyla. May I have permish to use as a re-post for THC?
2012/03/07 at 2:06 PM
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