Scott Edward Anderson's Poetry Blog

My son Jasper “goofing” at Disney World.

Here is my poem for Day 12 of National Poetry Month:

Today, my oldest son is,

Somehow, 17. I don’t feel

Old enough to have a son

That age. It’s a cliché, I know,

So I won’t even say it.

Suffice it to say,

I remember

My first talk with him:

Holding him in my arms

In a rocking chair

In Alaska Regional,

The Chugach Mountains

Out the hospital window.

I kissed his forehead,

Looked straight into

His face, and whispered,

“No matter what happens,

I will always love you,

And you will always know it.”

–Scott Edward Anderson

Here is my poem, er, my poems for Day 11:

Hard night rain.

Morning departure:

Soaked sleeves.

.

My love exits the train,

Making her connection

–Shapely legs.

.

Magnolia blossoms

Soaking my sleeves,

Wet with longing.

.

Four days too long.

But then–

What time is enough?

.

CONTEXT: I first became interested and engaged in Japanese poetry in the early to mid-1980s, through Gary Snyder and Kenneth Rexroth. I was drawn specifically to the Man’yōshū (Ten Thousand Leaves anthology) poets.

I liked that the Man’yōshū poets were less well-known than the great Haiku poets — Basho, Busan, and Issa — and their forms and styles were more varied, including long poems (chōka), short poems (tanka), and even tan-renga (short connecting poems).

The phrase  “soaked sleeves” or “soaking sleeves,” was used to represent tears shed for an absent lover — whether lost or just far from one’s side. It could also connote longing for place or countryside.

I first used the phrase and a loose tanka form in my “Glimmerglass Poems,” which were written during the summer of 1985 in Cooperstown, NY. You can read them HERE as they appeared in the journal Terrain.

I use it here to draw a parallel between the rain of last night’s storm and my sadness at having to be away from Samantha for the next four days.

–Scott Edward Anderson

Herewith my Day 10 poem:

I awake at 4:30 AM

To the sound of a bird

I can’t identify by song.

He teases me from inside

The magnolia just off our deck.

In the predawn light,

I can’t spot him among the buds.

I think of Issa:

“Singing since morning

Skylark, your throat

Is parched.”

Climbing back into bed,

I see you sleeping.

So beautiful in the early light.

My happiness is anything

But average.

–Scott Edward Anderson

Here is my poem for Day 9:

I worry that my happiness

Will get in the way of my poetry.

Whoever heard of a happy poet?

We’re all supposed to be manic

Depressives or alcoholics.

We have to suffer for our Art

Or it ain’t “Art” — right?

I worry, too, that I’m boring

My readers with all these love

Poems or that it seems

Over-the-top, that no one

Will believe a man can be

THAT much in love,

When these are among

The most honest poems

I’ve ever written. And,

Yes, I AM that much in love.

Worry, too, I can’t sustain

Such joy and I’m setting myself

Up for a big fall. I worry…

Nah, I’ve given up worrying.

Happiness is my choice,

And I’m happy with it.

 –Scott Edward Anderson

Here is my poem for Day 8 of National Poetry Month:

“So this is what it’s like without kids,”

Your son observes when he stops by

To pick up his computer on his way

Back to his dad’s crosstown apartment.

Adult music, a gourmet dinner eaten,

Poached pears in pomegranate juice.

Romance in the air.

Yeah, this is what it’s like without our kids.

We revel in these moments,

Alone together.

But these are only a part of our flowering.

Those nights more frenetic, with your kids

Or mine…or the whole six-pack together

In full flourish, are no less remarkable.

Extraordinary, actually.

And pieces of what we are building together:

The life that we want to live,

With intention and authenticity,

And, yes, equal parts messiness and grace.

–Scott Edward Anderson

Here is my poem for Day 7:

When I saw your familiar face

In the picture I painted almost 30 years ago,

I understood Frost’s delight

And “surprise of remembering

Something I didn’t know I knew.”

Had I really been searching for you

In all my days and dreams?

It was the same feeling of recognition

I had twice when we met:

For the first time in that Philly train station,

And from across the room a year later,

As I was about to go on stage in New York.

I didn’t know what it was I recognized,

Or how it would change my life.

But “something I didn’t know I knew,”

Became something I didn’t know

I needed in my life, and then

Something I couldn’t live without

In every dream, and every night, and every day.

–Scott Edward Anderson

Here is my poem for Day 6 (or morning six, as it were…):

“Freedom’s just another word

For nothing left to lose,”

As it goes in that old

Kris Kristofferson song.

But we lose something

Every day, free or chained–

Cells, skin, hair, memories.

Time goes too, the sparrows

Mark it outside our window,

The mourning doves coo

And whisper, their throats

Parted by the morning mist.

We rise slowly on mornings

We’re alone together; infrequent

As those days may be.

Our bed loosing its grip

Ever so reluctantly.

“I ache to be in your  hold,”

You wrote in a dream.

My poetess of sleep.

–Scott Edward Anderson

Here is my Day 5 poem for National Poetry Month:

Remember that Adrienne Rich poem

About falling in love at middle age?

The one where she talks about wanting

“To know even our limits.”

And where weeks stand in for years

Of not knowing one another.

Every day I’m convinced

That you are more beautiful

In your maturity, with your inner

Core more centered, than you

Could have been in your twenties.

(I am a better man now, too.)

And the time we do have can’t be

Wasted over what might have been,

Or how little of it there is.

We have what we have,

Which is a little like saying,

“It is what it is.”

Forget Manhattan

Or Berlin–

Let’s Take Brooklyn

And begin the beguine.