Monday, November 15, 2010
Ellen Bass (poem)
Ellen Bass
She has poured her life into words,
the way a carpenter would hammer
bright studs
into a set for a movie backdrop,
precisely,
the way a woman
might carefully arrange
decorations on a cake.
Not that any of this is bad--
no, what she does
is capture
the essence of the particular,
the person with the straggly
beard
in the next aisle,
the teenage mother with the complaining baby
in her arms
at the check out counter
in the grocery.
Or the woman on the plane,
slightly overweight,
wearing her new blouse
for her trip to Hawaii,
the old man
who can’t quite find
his seat assignment
as he struggles to lift
his carryon
overhead.
She sees all of these,
and, like god,
carefully gathers them together,
puts them in her pocket,
ready to make
her next collage,
her panoramic sweep
of the human scene,
all of it melded together,
ready to become her next poem.
Dorothy Walters
November 13, 2010
