Follow It Down

The weeping cherry tree on the corner of my house hasn't really bloomed for the past two years. I'm sure there's a reason for this, but I don't know what it is. Maybe it's bad soil quality, or the tree's gotten too much or too little water, and I'm pretty sure the poor thing needs some serious pruning. The photo above is from a few years ago when the tree was dripping in pink and white. I want to eat trees when they look like that. But this spring and last, just a few pops of pink showed up and then turned into green leaves. I miss the blooms. Figuring out how to get them back is going to require me to play "homeowner & gardener," which I'm not very good at--or very interested in, truth be told. (I'm the kind of person who wishes I were the kind of person who likes to garden.) But if I want the flowers back next year, I'm going to have to figure it out. The same sad fate has also struck my lilac bush, and it hasn't flowered for at least three years. My laziness and lack of knowledge are robbing me of my favorite spring blossoms. This won't do. I'd better heed Annie Dillard's advice and follow it down. 

I read an interview with poet Charles Simic in The Atlantic today. He says this about following things down and seeing them in their specificity and strangeness so you can write about them: 

"To me, the ideal poem is one a person can read and understand on the first level of meaning after one reading. An accessible quality, I think, is important. Give them something to begin with. Something that seems plain and simple but has something strange—something about it that's not quite ordinary, that will cause them to do repeated readings or to think about it. The ambition is that, each time they read, they will get to another level of the poem."

I like that. Good poetry (and essays and stories and movies and songs) do that, don't they? That's the kind of stuff I like to read, and it's the kind of stuff I try to write. 

Simic's interview ends with this gem: 

"My fantasy goes like this: a reader, in a bookstore, browsing in the poetry section. They pull out a book and read a few poems. Then they put the book back. Two days later they sit up in bed at four o' clock in the morning, thinking—I want to read that poem again! Where's that poem? I've got to get that book."

Isn't that the writer's and the reader's dream? To be so moved by something that you must find it again? 

These days I'm following down a lot of things: essays and stories; gardening tips; piles of laundry; recipes; deep fears and deeper desires; the way my body moves; relationships; dreams; the past and the future; what it means to be a family; how I want to spend my days and how I want to live my life. I'm following pots of tea down to the last drop. I'm following the hours of the days into the wee hours of the night. I'm following my breath in the middle of the night when I can't sleep. I'm following my reflection in the mirror, watching the silver-grey hairs grow in as the rest of my hair grows out. I follow the news or I don't. I try to follow down the thread of heartache that seems to wrap around the world. I follow any hint of joy I find. Follow it down. Where's that poem? I've got to get that book.

Comments

[Rosanna]

What an inspiring post...encouraged me indeed, to follow down on a lot of things that have remained dangling...somewhere...