poet Faith Shearin

Poem of the Week, by Faith Shearin

Posted on by alisonmcghee

When my son was eleven he went away to camp for a full month, a decision I was not at all sure of. The camp was three hours away in another state and I missed him terribly and wrote and sent packages and tried not to worry and hoped he was having fun, which it turned out he was. At the end of camp, parents had a choice: they could pick their child up or their child could ride back to the city on the camp bus. I chose to drive up, not knowing that literally every other camper would take the bus back.

When I got there it was raining lightly. The woods were green and deep, the cabins were empty, and I suddenly felt inadequate, as if I’d deprived my son of a few more hours of fun on the bus with his friends. No one was there but a few counselors and a quiet boy in a blue rain jacket, watching me with calm eyes, waiting for me to recognize him, this same boy who had once lived inside me.

Spelling Bee, by Faith Shearin

In the spelling bee my daughter wore a good
brown dress and kept her hands folded.
There were twelve children speaking

into a microphone that was taller than
they were. Each time it was her turn
I could barely look. It wasn’t that I wanted

her to win but I hoped she would be
happy with herself. The words were too hard
for me; I would have missed chemical,

thermos, and dessert. Each time she spelled
one correctly my heart became a bird.
She once fluttered so restlessly beneath

my skin and, on the morning of her arrival,
her little red hands held nothing.
Her life since has been a surprise: she can

sew; she can draw; she can read. She hates
raisins but loves science. All the parents
must feel this, watching from the cheap

folding chairs. Somewhere inside them
love took shape and now
it stands at the microphone, spelling.

Click here for more information about poet Faith Shearin. Today’s poem is from her collection Moving the Piano, published in 2011 by Stephen F. Austin State University Press.

alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Poem of the Week, by Faith Shearin

Posted on by alisonmcghee

Click here to peruse our summer and fall one-day online writing workshops. I’d love to see you in the zoom room.

There is a town in North Ontario
Dream comfort memory to spare
And in my mind I still need a place to go
All my changes were there

College is the place I go in my heart when I need a place to go: Maple leaves ironed between wax paper. Mountains turned to flame in the fall. My mailbox for four years: 2947. My i.d. #: 84337. Blue sky winter afternoons. A narrow bed with a blue wool blanket. A library carrel. The language lab, headphones over my ears. Dancing at the Alibi. Chinese characters written over and over and over. The boy who wore the army jacket and set up a shrine to John Prine in his dorm room. The girl who laced her hiking boots with red laces.

For me it was college, but it doesn’t have to be. A person, a place, an experience, a single moment: and suddenly the roof of your life lifts off and blows away.

Directions to Your College Dorm, by Faith Shearin

All hallways still lead to that room
with its ceiling so high it might have been

a sky, and your metal bed by the window,
and your crate of books. First,

you must walk across the deep
winter campus to find your friend

throwing snowballs that float
for years. Then, open our letters:

shelves of words. You will find
our coats, our awkwardness, the tickets

from the trains that witnessed
our confusion. Love was the place

where we became as naked
as morning; it was dangerous and

dappled and we visited its shores
with suitcases and maps from childhood.

I remember our shadows growing
on your wall while a candle

swallowed itself. You kept a single
glass of water on a desk and it trembled

whenever we danced.


Click here for more information about Faith Shearin.

alisonmcghee.com

Words by Winter (my poetry podcast)