For most of this past month, I have been in Toronto, the city that still has my heart. I had time to spend with my daughter and granddaughter, visit a few old friends, and explore again, the neighborhoods I used to frequent on a daily basis. When I first arrived there, the weather was still cool, and the trees barely sported buds, but by the time I left, sidewalks were shaded by canopies of green, and forsythia, tulips and rhododendrons bloomed.
In San Diego, Spring has been nearly nonexistent, and the continuing drought, some days of unseasonably high temperatures, and my husband’s forgetting to water the plants on our deck, left me feeling as dull and parched as the landscape that greeted me as I returned. I was feeling sorry for myself, unable to “see” with an open heart or mind– until later in the day, as I began to sort through the pile of mail that had accumulated on my desk.
There were four postcards addressed to me and waiting to be read, the remnants of a writing exercise and “challenge” I’d offered my Moores UCSD Cancer Center writers several weeks ago, one that grew out of a favorite poet’s cancer experience, and one I’ve written about before in my blogs.
Ted Kooser, the former poet laureate of the U.S. developed prostate cancer in the late 1990s, forcing him to give up his writing and his position as an insurance executive. He was, as he described it, “depressed by my illness, preoccupied by the routines of my treatment, and feeling miserably sorry for myself. I’d all but given up on reading and writing…” He began a routine of taking early morning walks and before long, surprised himself by “trying my hand at a poem. Soon,” he said, “I was writing every day…”
Kooser began pasting his daily poems on the backs of postcards and sending them to his longtime friend, author Jim Harrison. The result was his collection of poems, Winter Morning Walks: 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison published in 2000. In the poems,Kooser did not refer directly to his cancer, but instead, inspired by what he observed on his walks, considered life and death through metaphor and simile.
March 18
Gusty and warm
I saw the season’s first bluebird
this morning, one month ahead
of its scheduled arrival. Lucky I am
to go off to my cancer appointment
having been given a bluebird, and,
for a lifetime, have been given
this world.
Kooser’s little book inspired me to become more observant as I walk in the early morning, noticing those small gifts of nature and beauty rather be preoccupied with the day’s tasks. Now I have incorporated his routine, writing a short poem, rarely longer than five or seven lines, capturing something I’ve observed, something that leads to a metaphor or reflection for what I’m feeling or experiencing.
I’d picked up Kooser’s book again a few weeks ago, as I often do with many of the poetry books I have on my shelves, and re-read his poems. Then I had an idea. “Why not invite my writing group participants to write a postcard poem?” Rather than focus on cancer, why not encourage everyone to take a single observation from nature and turn it into a short poem?
I introduced Kooser’s book and read from it before handing a postcard to each person–on one side, a picture, but on the other, blank, for writing a note. The instructions were simple. In the coming week, notice one thing in nature and from it, write a short poem, a haiku, free verse, it didn’t matter. (The nice thing about postcards is that writing a poem inside the small space available makes poetry far less intimidating to try). We’d share them the following week, I said, before adding, on impulse, “Send me a postcard poem, and I promise I’ll send you one back.”
“Really?”
Yes, I said, repeating the offer. “Write me a postcard poem, and I’ll write one for you.”
Within a few days, postcard poems from several members of the group arrived in my mailbox. Each bore the date and a short description of the weather, just as Kooser’s did, for example, “sunny & bright,” “windy, windy, windy,” or “hot and clear with fires.” And on the back of each card, a poem, three lines to nine, all capturing a single moment of observation and coupled with a reflection. True to my word, I wrote back on a postcard with poem of my own.
That was six weeks ago, and our writing group series has adjourned until September. I didn’t expect five more postcard poems would be waiting for me as I returned from my trip. Some in the group are still finding inspiration and enjoyment in the little gifts of noticing and then sharing the poems that result. For example, N. wrote about walking toward the entrance to the cancer center:
Sleepwalking, I remember to observe…
A tousled haired two-year old…
selects twigs for her bouquet.
Dead brush to me, possibilities
and wonder for her.
And from R., a reflection on doing this year’s tax preparations during his cancer treatment:
I realize where I am.
And where I’ve been.
Once again I’ve have crossed into another first in my life
for now, for the first time,
I am happy to do taxes.
J., another in our group, began illustrating her cards, painting small watercolor flowers on one side and writing a poem on the other, inspiring me to use some of my sketches for mine. I doubt the writers knew how their cards would bring me such joy—but they have. Even now, as I write this blog post, the clouds have begun to disappear and the sunlight is blanketing the trees, making the view from my window come to life again…or is it the fact that I have remembered, thanks to the gifts of these postcard poems, to be present, to be fully aware and attentive to the beauty in front of me?
I have some postcard poems to write today. I’ve even printed one of my sketchbook drawings to serve as a postcard picture, inspired by J.’s watercolors. My jet lag seems to have disappeared. My spirits have lightened. And I’m smiling.
Why not try writing a postcard poem and sharing it with someone? In this world of texting, Facebook and Twitter, I sometimes feel our ability to be attentive to what is life-giving, how the extraordinary can be discovered in the ordinary, or how utterly beautiful nature can be, is lost when our eyes are so focused on the screen and shorthand our written communication has become. Cancer or any other life-altering illness demands more than a text or a Facebook post to express its impact, how lives are changed by it. A short little postcard poem shared between friends or loved ones helps us remember how precious sour lives are , how remarkable the beauty is just outside our windows waiting to be discovered.
March 20
The vernal equinox
How important it must be
so someone
that I am alive, and walking,
and that I have written
these poems.
This morning the sun stood
right at the end of the road
and waited for me.
(Ted Kooser, Winter Morning Walks, 2000).
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