Poetry Sunday

How do we develop some of our habits? Why do we do some of the odd things we do? As I've grown older, I've realized that many of my habits and mannerisms are ones that my father had while I was growing up ... perhaps they were also habits and mannerisms he picked up from his father - one of the grandfathers I never knew. This poem by Kim Dower examines that question, and comes to much the same answer I did.

There Will Be Things You Do 

by Kim Dower 

you won’t know why.
Maybe waiting to tie
your shoelaces

until everything else
is in place.
Could be you’ll slide

your egg yolks aside
eat every bit of bacon,
toast, whites while the forsaken

yellow orbs stare at you
from the side pocket
of your empty plate.

People will ask
why do you save
your yolks for last

and you won’t know—
won’t recall
the cousin from the south

came to visit one summer
ate his eggs so odd
your family said

stuck with you
like the way
you love to be kissed

on the back of your neck
can vaguely recollect
your mother’s kisses

after your bath
too gentle for memory.
There will be things you do

you won’t know why
like the way you look
up at the sky

when anxious or blue
it’s what your father
used to do

every family trip
when nothing else
was right

except those clouds
moving north by northwest
through the night

he showed you
what pilots knew:
factors for safe flying

are visibility
and how low
and mean the clouds are.


Have a good day. More thoughts coming later this week, when Agnes and I return from our vacation.

Bilbo