In our spring/summer Writing It Real contest, writers and poets sent in writing inspired by the world around them. That’s a broad topic as we might be looking at the world close up and intimately or from afar. In selecting winners in our spring/summer Writing It Real contest, final judge Betsy Howell wrote of Mary Thompson’s poem that its “images of the natural world juxtaposed against the on-going human experience” impressed her. She explained: “We receive news, good and bad all the time during our lives and yet the world still moves on around us.  We can feel it embracing us or passing us by, as we like.”

Boating to Breakfast
By Mary Langer Thompson

Thirteen pelicans swoop down,
gather in a circle,
their sword-like beaks
striking the water.

We leave the tarp
on the dock
under a heavy stone.
You start the engine,
I turn on the radio to some song 
about bad times with a lover
being better than good times
with someone else.

The empty lake
reflects lakefront homes.
We leave the No-Wake zone,
pass Papoose Bay,
Boulder Bay.
At the courtesy dock
we lose our pole in the water.
You catch it as it floats by.
Close call.
We walk over the sand.

It’s been a little over a week
since the diagnosis.
I watch you eat carefully,
But soon you feel nauseous
then add that maybe
it’s the three aspirins, uncoated,
in your empty stomach.
Soon I’ll retire,
feed you broccoli and blueberries.
I pop my hormone pills.

Heading back,
I offer to drive the boat.
“Maybe another time,” you say.
You’re not ready to go aground again,
to have to jump out and push us back
into deeper water.

At our makeshift dock
we pull the tarp back on the boat.
Then you can’t find the keys,
though you know you took them
out of the ignition.
You slip under the cover,
say, “It’s dark under here!”
I laugh, my eyes following
the moving bump that is you.

You emerge, triumphant,
hold up the keys. Say,
“Why don’t we go back out one more time?”
“Sure,” I reply, as two pelicans
take to the air, their beaks
not even visible,
just their soft white wings.

****

As you know, every entrant in the contest received response from me about the work they sent and had the opportunity to revise and resubmit that revision for a final judge. It is interesting to compare this compact, accessible and moving poem with the earlier version of it that Mary entered into the contest for response:

Boating to Breakfast

Thirteen pelicans swoop down,
gather in a circle,
their sword-like beaks
striking the water.

We leave the tarp
on the dock
under a heavy stone.
You start the engine,
I turn on the radio to some song
about bad times with you
being better than good times
with someone else.

The empty lake
reflects lakefront homes.
We leave the No-Wake zone,
pass Papoose Bay,
Boulder Bay.
At the courtesy dock
we lose our pole in the water.

You catch it as it floats by.
Close call.
We walk over the sand.

It’s been a little over a week
since the diagnosis.
I watch you eat carefully
even though the doctor said
go to the mountains.
You tell me you feel nauseous
then add that maybe
it’s the three aspirins, uncoated,
in your empty stomach.
Soon I’ll retire,
feed you broccoli and blueberries.
I pop my hormone pills.aaaa

Heading back,
I look up to see someone sitting
under a red, blue, orange parasail
high in the air.
She is slowly brought
back down.  I wonder
if it’s too late for me

Would I become
Bruegel’s Icarus who flew too
close to the sun, end with
my legs sticking out of the water,
no one noticing?

At our makeshift dock
we pull the tarp back on the boat.
Then you can’t find the keys,
though you know you took them
out of the ignition.
You slip under the cover,
say, “It’s dark under here!”
I laugh, my eyes following
the moving bump that is you.

You emerge, triumphant,
hold up the keys. Say,
“Why don’t we go back out one more time?”
“Sure,” I reply, as two pelicans
take to the air, their beaks
not even visible,
just their soft white wings.

When I read this version, I offered these responses to help Mary in creating a revision that would go on to the final judging:

I like this poem very much and admire the humor and the sadness in the present moment of the couple who are aging, ailing, taking care, not taking enough care (uncoated aspirins), losing the pole, finding the pole, losing the keys, agreeing to go out again. I think the voice of the poet and the images and occasion are accessible and moving. I wonder if the word “you” in “about bad times with you” could be “about bad times with someone” because the you at first seems to be the other in the we, and I like going from “someone” to “someone else.” I am confused by the connection between eating slowly and the doctor saying go to the mountains. I am not sure why the partner would change how he eats by going or not going to the mountains.

I am glad the speaker will feed her husband nourishing foods. I think the economy of “soon I will retire” and “pop hormone pills” is wonderful for telling us the life situation of the two. I feel distracted by the comparison the speaker makes between herself and the person in the sky. That person is being brought down. Our speaker seems to be moving in and quietly connecting to her partner. When I read about the parasailer, I become distanced from the two in the boat.

I really like the frame of the pelicans for the poem — that at the end two, like these partners, take to the skies as the speaker seems to be saying she and her husband are, though they are older adventurers taking the kinds that suits them.

About that parasailing imagery, I am not sure that it is too late for the speaker. The “go back out one more time” seems to talk about the couple at this point and I like it a lot. I am not sure what replaces the parasailing but I feel that something will be included or emphasized to deepen the poem

It’s a lovely poem. The title has a nice double entendre — a new life starting.

****

Rereading both versions of the poem now as I review Betsy’s words about it and my own to its first draft, I realize how perfectly fitting so many of the images are: 13 pelicans, the unlucky number foreshadows the diagnosis and the need to take hormone pills, aging and the losses it entails.  It is dark under the blanket where the husband searches for his lost keys, an image that makes the reader feel that the two are entering life’s uncharted waters, even as they are headed for the restaurant they know how to get to.  This use of the imagery that is directly from the poet’s experience of the moment works so well to ground the poem in a particular event while keeping the emotional urgency of the poem going, its reason for being clear and fully evoked at the poem’s end. In fact, since the pelicans come in again at the end, perhaps the unconscious mind was seeing the ending while watching the parasailer — in the sky, birds, pelicans, soft wings–the unconscious works that way.

The perfection and grounded quality of the words contribute to the dissonance when the parasailing person enters the poem, when the poet wonders if she is too late for adventures. The poem seems so much to be in this moment between the husband and wife on the water, in the boat, on their way to breakfast, choosing to take the boat out again, settling in to see the two pelicans, not their sharp beaks but their soft wings, a stunning image about love and hope, closeness and happiness about the time left. All of this is more stunning in the version Betsy read than in the draft where the parasailer who is pulled down from the sky makes the poet wonder if it is too late for her to adventure. The poem wants to stay focused on the couple and the now of their relationship and time together.

Here is what Mary said about drafting her revision:

This poem is about ten years old, and although the changes Sheila suggested weren’t major, they obviously were what this poem needed.  There was some vagueness in stanza two, and stanza five had me dreaming of possibly parasailing.  I needed to go back to the experience of our boat ride to make the poem ring more true.

Although one is not supposed to say, “it really happened,” this particular poem is pretty accurate.  We had this used boat, and I always thought it would be romantic to boat to a restaurant.  When my husband and I finally did, I realized it was a time of transition in our lives, but we believe in always being hopeful and trying to laugh, even when things don’t look too bright.  When I can, I try to come full circle in a poem, so pick up on the pelicans again at the end.  It was only later that I learned that pelicans have religious significance as symbols of redemption and love.

****

I love knowing that the incident really happened. I think most poems are about moments in the poet’s life that seem to sound with extra resonance. Sometimes, as a poet or writer, having the opportunity to hear a reader’s particular confusions and unwitting associations from one’s words proves most valuable in revision. It allows the poet to see where extra imagery and diversion of attention move off topic and dilute the power of a poem.

Often changing a draft just a little, as Mary did, allows the emotional occasion that urged the poet to speech to rise up clearly. Sometimes, we realize we’ve used more words than we needed to get the feelings and situation and evocation across to our readers. When we use just the right number of words to do this, we usually find that there was something even deeper, sometimes quietly deeper, in the poem than we had realized. I think that is so in Mary Thompson’s poem that evokes the life situation of aging partners in a long-term marriage, the quality of being on the same page even during difficult times and the willingness to greet the day despite ailments. Taking out the parasailer, who distracts from the poet’s attention to how she and her partner are acting in reaction to a diagnosis, was a brilliant move! The poem seems more cohesive, more grounded in the experience the two are having together. I admire the easy way the partner asks about taking the boat out again and the easy way the poet agrees. The time left for this couple is precious and they will live it fully together, no dramatic sky sailing needed.