January 17, 2008: Ramble #17

The ‘Bumper Crop’ series has at least one more entry, but requires a bit more work on my part before I can post the rest of the story. In the meantime, I wanted to share something from a more recent work. After we moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains almost exactly seven years ago, I found my creative writing energies more or less depleted. Soon, being a father added a new dimension to my life, and the one creative project that stayed on my agenda was to write an epic poem for Amelia, detailing the first day of her life from my perspective. That took over a year, and eventually it may find its way on here. After finishing that, in the moments when life and work settled down, I began to wonder what should come next. The answer found me in the form of a new project I conceived, and dubbed “Ramble.” It’s a document where I intended to write creatively to address the things going on in my life. To keep it brief, I limited the length of each line to 38 characters. The first entry was 73 lines long, and the idea was to make each entry shorter by a single line, so that the last entry eventually will be a single line, which hopefully will present me with something significant. Begun in 2002, my most recent entry on April 28 of this year was number 12, so it is certainly waning. Last week, Amelia invited me to come to her first grade class and tell them a bit about what I do. On that very memorable occasion, I shared the ramble entry I’d written earlier this year for Amelia and Riley, which had the goal of defining them in terms of their human origins… all in 17 lines. Here it is; I hope you enjoy it.

Ramble #17

on your mom’s side, two proud families:
the kieferts, parents of four blonde boys,
each a model citizen, but bill was golden;
and the juliens, fastidious, witty characters,
where ginny was a jewel without compare,
who has become a legitimate queen.
on my side, two families beyond words:
the darnells, parents of five boys, one girl,
where hardship drove jim’s resolve to win;
and the ridings… warm, cheerful folks who
communed in nature and lived simply, and
who raised a bright, shining, happy lila.
there’s this daddy, your wonderful mama,
and oh so many friends and relatives,
three step-grandparents larger than life,
and even a few cats in the mix that make
you up. you are our two grand perfections.