As I've been preparing for the Bridging Program, I've started going through books of poems again, and it's bringing back fond memories. Who knew lesson planning could be so fun?

One book in particular - Elizabeth Bishop: The Complete Poems: 1927-1979 - transported me back to my teenage years when reading and writing poetry left me both wonder-filled and famished. I remember consuming the words and naively wanting the same complexity of anger, sorrow, and softness... myself tinkering with words and imagining a life where your art and your life would be a cause of pain.

That was my love then. And so this book meant a lot to me, because it was part of a gift Mom got for me during a trip to the States. The other book was Robert Frost's complete anthology. I loved it. I didn't ask for it, I don't think, but Mom, out of her own initiative, caught this passion in me, and brought me back these books.

Now, I've never been patient, so I never ended up carefully reading through these books, but I remember just enjoying possessing them. Funny girl. Just having them, I guess, made me feel more like a legitimate poet. Of course, I never was one. But I liked feeling like one, and I liked being perceived as one. Perhaps that is why God had to take it from me - I was choosing what was not even second-best.

Still, this book remains a reminder of Mom's thoughtfulness. I don't give her enough credit for it I think... but there were moments growing up when she was thoughtful, sensitive, and even sentimental. She was one to nurture my dreams and encourage what she saw as talent. Well, I'm thankful for the mother I have.

And today I came across a poem Elizabeth Bishop wrote at age 16, about a tree. It captures - though only to a degree - my sentiments as a kindergarten-er befriending the Flame of the Forest outside my window on Broadcast Drive. (Strange how, last year, when I visited, I was shoo-ed away as a tresspasser from what was once my childhood home.)



To a Tree

Oh, tree outside my window, we are kin,
For you ask nothing of a friend but this:
To lean against the window and peer in
And watch me move about! Sufficient bliss

For me, who stand behind its framework stout,
Full of my tiny tragedies and grotesque grieves,
To lean against the window and peer out,
Admiring infinites'mal leaves.