Today I brought an old friend over to mother. When she was seventeen she started her poetry notebook. Over the next few years, she'd carefully copy down her favorite poems and her little brown leather notebook was gradually filled with the works of famous and not-so-famous poets. There were poems by Amy Lowell, Emily Dickinson, Walter de la Mare, Sara Teasdale, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and a fair sprinkling of writings by the ever-popular author, Anonymous. Her penmanship was once elegant, but the ink has now faded after seventy plus years. The notebook entries were dated from 1934 to 1938 and then there were no more entries until September 1988 shortly after her husband's (my Dad) death. Then she added Oliver Wendall Holmes' "The Chambered Nautilus". That was one I read to her today. The familiar words of these much loved poems brought a blessed respite.I read a wide variety of poems and when I stopped, she asked me where she could keep her notebook. I hesitated for fear it might get lost, but she really wanted to be able just to touch it. I lay it down on her tray right where she could rest her hand upon the cover of her very dear old friend.
1 comment:
I started my own "book of stuff" at Illinois Summer School for the Arts. I neglected it for a few years in my twenties, but I've begun writing in it again. I have a number of poems by friends, which makes for wonderful reading nowadays. I'm hoping my LJ doesn't push it away! I ought to move over some of the fun things- there's something so satisfying about reading it in your own handwriting. Though my penmanship has never been elegant, I hope the book lasts!
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