Lingua Franca

Dawn Potter

the washing-machine repairman asks

if I’ve saddled my sons with biblical names

on purpose the plumber presses me to admire

his sculptures the electrician wonders

if I have skills in patent law the driver

of the propane truck desires geographical

wisdom the contractor inquires about the fashions

of poetry the plow guy wonders if I know

where he can buy a bag of pot

the blacksmith suggests I should join the Party

of Decency the cheerleader

is desperate for good news

my father wonders why atonal music even exists

my husband has given up believing

that I will ever get a job the old lady

shrieks, “Why are you all so mean?” a child asks,

“Does the chicken like to be eaten?”

the monster creeps between his unwashed sheets

the wrestler demands his ransom money back

the vision wishes it were God the wind

                        never stops whispering

cold

Things one discovers by Googling oneself:

Apparently my essay "Not Writing the Poem" (first published in the Sewanee Review)  is included in the "Notable Essays of 2012" list at the back of Best American Essays, 2013. Two years after the fact I learn this. Jeesh.

Things one discovers while editing books:

The following poem was originally published in Divine and Moral Songs for Children (1715). The author was Isaac Watts, whom Lewis Carroll later mocked so beautifully in the Alice books.

Obedience to Parents 

Let children that would fear the Lord
    Hear what their teachers say;
With rev'rence meet their parents word,
    And with delight obey.

Have you not heard what dreadful plagues
    Are threaten'd by the Lord
To him that breaks his father's law,
    Or mocks his mother's word?

What heavy guilt upon him lies!
    How cursed is his name!
The ravens shall pick out his eyes,
    And eagles eat the same.

But those who worship God, and give
    Their parents honour due;
Here on this earth they long shall live,
    And live hereafter too.

Say what you will about contemporary children's literature. At least it isn't this. 

I woke suddenly at 3 a.m. to the sound of distant roaring. What could it be? The broad moon shone like a coin behind the shivering silhouetted trees. The bright night air was dense with glowing fog. And then suddenly the distant roar shifted its haunches and began to run. Now I knew it was the wind, transforming in an instant from a steady blow into a racing gale. As it tore into our clearing, I watched the clouds begin to twist in the moonlight, the trees weep and tear their hair as if they were a Sophoclean chorus, the glimmering ground fog spiral into a veil, masking the trees that only moments earlier had been naked under the moonlight. Now the wind dashed at the veil, shredding it, and again I saw the trees moaning and tearing their hair; saw the clouds dancing like bacchantes; saw threads of mist unspooling into the restless air.

For perhaps half an hour this beautiful frenzy battered the night. And then the gale raced away.

Last night it snowed four or five inches, and some sort of sleet-rain-snow gunk is continuing to precipitate this morning. It is not an ideal morning to lug a household's worth of laundry to the laundromat, but what kind of doting mother sends her son back to college with a suitcase full of dirty clothes?

Tomorrow both boys return to school, and I go to the appliance store and buy a new washing machine. The last time I bought a washing machine, the year was 1991, Tom and I were newlyweds in a duplex in Seekonk, Massachusetts, and the Simpsons were the latest TV novelty. Certainly that cheesy, bottom-of-the-line, apartment-sized Kenmore has done its duty by our family--calmly churning through a thousand pounds of filthy cloth diapers and cow-stained work clothes, breasting the waves of several basement floods and a massively clogged floor drain.

For years, when anything went wrong with the washing machine, I called Dick, who lives down the road. Dick was a wiry little man who looked to be about 60 but was really closer to 80. After studying the breakdown du jour, Dick always sighed and predicted failure. Then he fiddled around with it for 20 minutes, went out to his truck for a piece of wire, and fixed it. The downside to Dick was that he kept trying to Bring Me to Jesus while he was standing around in the kitchen waiting to get paid. This was a pretty big downside. It was, however, balanced by the fact that he was only charging me 12 dollars.

Unfortunately, the last time I called Dick, he was so feeble that he almost pitched headfirst down the cellar stairs. Then, in the middle of his fiddling, his wife telephoned to say she'd fallen out of her wheelchair. Dick fluttered off in a panic, leaving the Kenmore in pieces on the basement floor, as Tom and I waved 20-dollar bills in distress. "Dick, what do we owe you? Take something!" It was all very sad.

Tom did manage to patch up the machine that time; but even with the enthusiastic tinkering aid of our son, this week's breakdown was beyond him. "Something's busted in the gearbox," he speculated, and then the two of them clumped upstairs to drink more coffee and forget about it.

Thus, death has finally come to the washing machine. She has had a long and active career, despite rust and ugliness, and the basement will not see her like again.

Vox Populi, an online magazine with a focus on politically progressive essays and poetry, has decided to reprint several of my previously published pieces, and they'll be appearing over the course of the next few weeks. This pleases me: not only is publication always sweet, but few magazines are willing to reprint material, even work that has had limited circulation. I've always wondered about this. Different kinds of publications have different kinds of audiences, and their overlap is bound to be minimal, so why not be open to reprints?

Today the magazine is featuring an essay that most of you have already read: "Hated by Literature," which centers around my teenage reading of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. However, it's featured alongside a 1994 documentary about Malcolm X; and if nothing else, you might want to take a long look at the photo of me staring at the photo of Malcolm. Yikes.

I've been a serious writer for two decades now, working within and around and through the distractions of babies, jobs, housework, farmwork. Yet for me this physical vigor has been an integral part of a writing life. Interruptions that might seem to impede writing--oh, no, the baby's awake and screaming; oh, no, we're out of bread and I need to bake; oh, no, the goat's busted down her fence and is standing in the garden eating a rosebush--have turned out to be indispensable to getting the work done. Yes, I've been able to reconfigure some of these incidents into subject matter. But more importantly, they have taught me that writing doesn't stop when I step away from my desk. As I wrestle with the goat or change the diaper or shape the dough into loaves, my ears and eyes are still polishing images and following cadences; disconnected thoughts are still adhering and dissolving. Not only does my cerebral curiosity cling to the task of composition, but the actions of my body seem to invigorate that curiosity.

So I can easily understand that a body's slowdown might equal a writer's slowdown. Donald Hall has chosen to stop writing poems; Philip Roth has chose to stop writing novels. I imagine that someday I, too, may choose to stop writing. Yet I do hope I will be able to shift graciously into some other joy. Adoring nothing would be a terrible end.

New Year's Letter

Happy New Year, dear friends and strangers. Up here in the north country, the clouds are grim and low. A fire sputters indecisively in the woodstove, and the kitchen faucet has a drip. But the beds are full of sleeping boys, and a bouquet of parsley sits in a glass of water on my counter. What could be more comforting? In pet news: Anna has accidentally fallen asleep on Ruckus's catnip mouse, and Ruckus is busily trying to learn how to turn a doorknob. In writing news: I opened my email this morning to discover one rejection letter and one acceptance letter. Balance has been maintained.

Yesterday I almost hit a deer with my car. The day before, my sons were almost sideswiped by a log truck making an illegal turn. Lives are candles.

I have been reading Margaret Drabble's The Peppered Moth, a novel I have never read before. It is full of sadness: a daughter's distress at a mother's defeat, a mother's anger at a daughter's distress, a marriage doomed to misery from the start. "Sexual attraction and pity do not mix well," warns the novelist. Her words are an ominous adage for the new year.

The clock ticks. The faucet drips. The fire in the woodstove clicks and snaps. This is the first new year of my fiftieth decade. So forgive me: let me frame the banal question. What am I doing with the candle that is my life?

I could burden you with a crowing list of accomplishments, a sentimental list of affections, a self-mutilating list of failures. But you have your own lists. You don't need mine.

What am I doing with the candle that is my life? I am watching it flicker and smoke in the draft, watching the red wax drip down the sides and pool on the white table. The scent of sulphur mixes with the clean fragrance of flame. A blue heart lurks at the root of the golden flare. Shadows caper on the wall.

A single candle; a small circle of light . . . but enough to read by. Enough to see a version of your face, and for you to see the ghost of mine.