So many uncool things about me are true: I dress like a librarian. (My hair is even in a bun today—bow down, bitches!). I majored in English. I LOVE grammar. I think the funniest (punniest) jokes involve puns. And every day I listen to this little five-minute radio show called “The Writer’s Almanac,” hosted by Garrison Keillor. GK has a voice that’s so warm and furry, like a big fuzzy bear rug I just want to roll around in and fall asleep. His voice makes my eyelids heavy, like somebody's 80-year-old meemaw who’s snuggled in bed at 8pm under about 25 handmade quilts, having just turned off an episode of “Murder She Wrote” and just had a glass of warm milk with a Metamucil chaser.
Anyway, GK read this poem on Writer’s Almanac recently, and I thought it was just lovely. Hopefully, you will find it life-affirming and not morose.
Unveiling
by Linda Pastan
In the cemetery
a mile away
from where we used to live,
my aunts and mother
my father and uncles lie
in two long rows,
almost the way
they used to sit around
the long planked table
at family dinners.
And walking beside
the graves today, down
one straight path
and up the next,
I don't feel sad, exactly,
just left out a bit,
as if they kept
from me the kind
of grown-up secret
they used to share
back then, something
I'm not quite ready yet
to learn.
a mile away
from where we used to live,
my aunts and mother
my father and uncles lie
in two long rows,
almost the way
they used to sit around
the long planked table
at family dinners.
And walking beside
the graves today, down
one straight path
and up the next,
I don't feel sad, exactly,
just left out a bit,
as if they kept
from me the kind
of grown-up secret
they used to share
back then, something
I'm not quite ready yet
to learn.
You might like your cardigans but librarian?? Indeed! Only if local library has a hint of understated slutty! Come to work at my library and more boys would be reading or at least checking out books....while they check you out.
ReplyDeleteFriggen hilarious.
ReplyDelete