January: Remembering

In 2021, I had specific monthly challenges, determined at the beginning, then practiced throughout. So far, this year is different. I’m still thinking and working on my Haunts poems — doing some recording of my reciting the poems, thinking about new ones to add, wondering how they might work in video form — but also doing a lot of looking back at 2021. And, I’m rereading my entries and doing summaries of each month, which is a LOT of work, but worth it. Very useful and fascinating to review the past year and remember things too easily forgotten.

Here’s a draft of the Haunts poem I worked on. It brings in more of my past, connecting it to my present and future near the gorge.

Girl Ghost Gorge/ Sara Lynne Puotinen

Mississippi River Gorge, Minneapolis

Before there
was girl,

there was ghost,
carried

deep within
the girl,

passed on from
unknown

ancestors:
scrambled

code in the
back of

each eye that
starts a

shift from sharp
to soft

so slow it
will go

unnoticed
until

lines dissolve,
letters

blur, ground un
moors, and

a gorge is
carved out

between girl
and world.

Before there
was ghost,

there was girl.
Fiercely

physical,
sturdy,

not certain
but sure

footed, her
mother

still alive.
Able

to shake worlds
with her

body, to
take worlds

with one glance —
meadows,

forests, stint
less stars —

hers in an
instant.

Before there
was girl,

or ghost, there
was gorge,

formed over
thousands

of years when
water

wore down stone
on its

way up the
river.

4 feet of
land lost

every year,
replaced

with open
space, air.

This chasm
between

sides divides —
daughter

from mother,
here from

there, now from
then, girl

from ghost — and
creates

the place we
orbit

as we trace
the trails

left by each
other.

In addition to remember by ghost-girl self, I started a new year-long project of picking one poem I gathered for the month to memorize, and one to add to my desk collage.

to memorize: Forsythia/ Ada Limón
for my desk: a few selections from Victoria Chang’s new chapbook