Up Country Women
These up country women
the ones with long grey hair
been here since the sixties.
Dorothea Lang faces
patched corduroys and hand knit sweaters
hiking boots and rattletrap Volvos
or young sustainable faces
compost, recycle, home school
four wheel drive
green as the mountains
self-- assured.
I am not one of them.
I do not chop wood
nor carry water
fear ice and snow
the imperious mountains
can't ski or kayak
don't know the birds.
Misplaced limestone nugget
longing for shore and sand
in a serious hard scrabble land.
19 comments:
I love this, just visualizing your words almost makes me hear the sounds, too...
Oh Suki I love this! Being a former "Yankee woman" :) - born and raised in New England - I was expected to become tough, independent and self-reliant, although that was never my nature - being more contemplative, wanting to pursue "spiritual" interests. I don't thrive by "roughing it." Never a feminist, environmentalist, or pioneering type... I hope you get your shore and sand soon,and the wonderful fluidity of the water, so you can THRIVE!
This made me laugh.
You make yourself out to be such a misplaced diamond in the rough.
So when will you take yourself to sea and sand my dear, when? It's up to you. I hope for your sake you do it before too long.
your poetry is so lovely and yet at the same time stark and honest--spare and evocative--love it. so come home, then ;-)
Very good!
A good one Suki. Love the descriptions of the different women.
beautifully said...to the sea, to the sea. you see.
"misplaced limestone nugget."
I like that.
But then I like the whole thing, as always.
You paint the best word pictures, Suki, and tell the best stories with so few words. A talent not realized by many.
you wouldn't believe my WV if I told you, so I won't.
Lovely poem Suki and I agree with Mary please go where you belong dear. Shake off the fear.
Go home♥
I am not an up country woman either. I once thought I wanted to be, back in the sixties and seventies. Now I have grown past that and am comfortable being a modern day woman with simple conveniences. Nice wood.
Suki, your poems continue to amaze with their colourful words that change at once into powerful images. You, dear friend, really paint WITH words as well as oils, water colours. To me, you personify all an Artist should be.
Love many of the comments here.... you reached us all - even me - the "City Girl"!!
I love this one....and I can almost hear your voice reading it!
Love,
♥ Robin ♥
You set a clear picture of the Up Country Women.
It's good to know what you are not and what you really are...when you are ready,go where you belong Suki.
I had to chuckle Suki, because you describe a certain populations of this island very aptly! There is a romantic quality to it. They look so comfortable, so sure in their roles (and yet I know this is not always the truth). We are always so much more than we appear to be.
Wishing you the place that feels like home to your spirit.
marianne said 'go where you belong'
it took me aback. how true is that statement for you and for every one of us.
'Misplaced limestone nugget
longing for shore and sand
in a serious hard scrabble land'
aw suki, you write like an angel. you are a fine poet. do you know of the colrain poetry conference? you belong there.
how hard it is not to fit in old or young. back to marianne and her wise words (she is so practical and wise). go where you belong.
yes. that's it.
love
kj
I love this - and I can totally relate.
I'm always looking for the shoreline in the middle of our forbidding forest of ever so sturdy dark and disapproving trees. Give me a seagull's call and I feel I can breathe again.
thanks for mentioning Colrain KJ. Not sure I am willing to spend the money should I even get in but I do know about it. A friend went last fall.
Suki, this is lovely and it is so Taos, I would be the fist woman, except I can't knit and my car is an old subaru :-).
I want some shore and sand too.
xoxo
You are such a talented writer! Your imagery is crystal clear. You have that ability to say something universal as if it were being given words for the first time, a rare ability.
I can relate, as I feel like a mermaid trapped in the desert all too often.
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