Well, this was a gamble.
Our challenge this month was a roll of the dice — metaphor dice!
Our pal Laura rolled for us — we had several options to choose from — and I went with “my body is a bootleg blessing.” It has a nice alliterative ring to it but … what about the poem? In the end, the pandemic-insurrection-freak storm informed me. When I say I don’t understand anything anymore, I mean it! But even in the face of everything, the body is such a concrete and even weirdly logical thing. At least that’s how I’m feeling about it today…
Bootlegger: A Metaphor Dice Poem
By Liz Garton Scanlon
And just when I think I don’t understand
anything anymore (not a single thing – not true love
or how to convert ounces to grams or whether to trust
three rickety branches of government) just then, my throat
says I am thirsty, my skin says I am lonely, my lungs say
take it in, take it all in as if it belonged to you.
And I do – swallowing, asking to be touched, inhaling
then exhaling again and again, my body a bootlegged blessing
smuggled over centuries, across oceans and deserts, surviving
ignorance and illness, war and ravishing grief to be alive today,
to do the impossible, to make perfect sense of things.
You can read the others here:
Sara
Laura
Tanita
Tricia
Kelly
And Poetry Friday is at Karen Edmisten’s blog. Enjoy, all. Be safe and well…
Want to try next month’s challenge with us? The prompt: dizzying dizains. (Here’s a little primer for you.) We’ve done dizains once before and apparently liked the process enough to give it another whirl! Join us, and share your poem on March 26 in a post and/or on social media – #PoetryPals.
This makes me cry. True, precarious, and gorgeous.
Oh, it does? I’m… glad?
Well, glory! That just rose up and snacked me in the heart with it’s rightness. This is BEAUTIFUL.
Well, thank you, friend. I actually wanted to take it through one more round of polish but, y’know. Time and all that.
Liz, that second stanza really grabs me! “my body a bootlegged blessing/ smuggled over centuries, across oceans and deserts,” I love how concrete and yet big this poem is.
I have to say, the INSTANT I heard those words together, I loved them and knew I wanted to use them (even though I knew not what or for…)
I love how the first and last lines are connected, from “don’t understand” to “make perfect sense of things.” Everything in-between moves from soul-crushing to almost celebratory. Oh, the emotion of it all. Beautiful.
Funny to live in a world where our very human and imperfect bodies are actually relatively reliable compared to the rest of things!
I love “bootlegged blessing smuggled over centuries,” which made me think of history and what it all has to do with our bodies today, and that it took some stealth to arrive here. Thanks for sharing this.
My family did 23 and Me this summer and I think that kind of emerged in the poem for me…
Oh, how I love this. It’s beautiful and raw.
Thank you, pal!
Liz, this line: my body a bootlegged blessing
smuggled over centuries,
So gorgeous. I hope it’s been a better week for you.
Definitely looking up and warming up around here, Jone — thank you!
Hooray for these bootlegged blessings we call bodies. And for survival, against all the incredible odds of these times.
Isn’t it interesting that harrowing times make us more grateful?
Wow…the permission at the end…brings such a relief. I can see why Laura said this made her cry. It’s a beautiful poem.
OH, good — thank you, Linda!
This poem is breathtaking. I also love that my body a bootlegged blessing smuggled over centuries.
I guess many of us have taken that first step to “take it all in”, once afraid, but so needed, Liz. This is so beautiful for all of us to read, maybe sometimes to ‘hear’.
Wow, Liz, this is stunning.
All through this pandemic, and then all through the recent un-understandable everything, my family and I have gone back to simply this: reminding one another to breathe and do the next right thing. We can’t stop living with these bootlegged blessings (love that so much) nor would we want to, as they force us to stay grounded and do the impossible. I’ll be rereading this one many times.
“Take it all in as if it belonged to you.” Perfect! Yes! I love the way the body transcends all the nonsense and reminds us of what’s important. You’ve expressed it so very well.