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