19 Twenty-Nineth Beginning (Nanowrimo 2007) Organizing Aunt Sheila

[Welcome to the middle of a long conversation between and Aunt and the Niece she has never met and who has been sent by the family to "help orgainize." Do not read any part of this as if it were a completed story or you will be disappointed. In 2007, my strategy for Nanowrimo was to call my efforts 'literary' use that as an excuse to dump ideas and references that had been collecting in my mind and desk and files for years. I skipped linear progression.]

[I also skipped quotation marks and dialog tags. They may or may not go back. I kind of like the ambiguity.]

[Barbara has collected stacks of notes and is reading from them as she and her Aunt Sheila sit on a log in a meadow an undetermined distance away from nearby houses. The point of their exercise is to enter things into a database and throw the pieces of paper away.]

Here’s another poem

Yard Waste

The gate posts lean and so the gates must drag

When they are opened, causing me to flag

When I consider mowing my front lawn.

And so the grass grows up, the leaves fall on.

The compost pile is too near to the house.

The spiders come, says Kate.  They’re dangerous

To her.  I’ll acquiesce some are.  But she

Will not consent to work the yard with me

If there are places one of them could hide.

And so the leaves pile up, the herbs have died.

If we removed the things that hinder us

In our endeavors, causing us to cuss,

Would we be free to sweep away our pain?

Or would we hobble ourselves once again?

That sounds finished.

Yes, it is.  I started trying to do a poem a day one year.  I got up to maybe seven.  I was using them to not do other things.

Then we need to send this in someplace.

You think so?

Sure.  You can show me how.  It will be educational

Projects?

projects

this must be day six

6:_Strange to me – a rondeau

He was strange to me and so I said

“Do you come here often to break bread?”
He smiled and said, “I do not break, I eat
My bread.”  I smiled and said, “How quite concrete!”
“Not concrete, no.  Too hard,” he said.  “I fed

On bread.”  “Yes, quite,” I said, and should have fled.
To be polite, I persevered instead.
I wished to keep the conversation sweet.
He was strange to me,

So I began again, although in dread.

“Was it here?”  Did he answer?  No.  Instead
He laughed and leaned back, shaking, in his seat,
Took off his shoes and offered me his feet.
He was strange to me.

I like this.

Send it in?

Oh, yes.

Any others

looks like two

Whispering, susurrant leaves rejoice

To the tips of their branches, providing voice
For winnowing windiness, nature’s choice

For shaking their suppleness.  On the ground

Rounderous granites release the sound
Of a blundering brooklet.  The water’s pound

Fluidly drumming a splashing hum,

Rubbed out of passing the rocks become
A resonant utterance flowing from

Sediment’s shadow and surface prance.

When we are walking the wood’s expanse
Drink in the sounds of the drifting dance.

Revel in movement’s vibrant display

Garnishing gladly the passing day
Ravish your ears with the sound bouquet. 

Nourish your ears at the noise buffet?  Ah.  No. 

Looks like you have two different last lines

I couldn’t decide.  They were both weak

We’ll post it and let it cook on the back burner

I have created a monster

Yes you have, and you love me.

Yes I do.

Ahem.  Here’s another –

It was a lovely day in a fair, bright land.

            Clunk, Skreek, Ting.

The sun was shining and clouds floated gently by.

            Clunk, Skreek, Clomp.

Birds twittered in the trees and butterflies flitted in the meadows.

            Clunk, Scrape, Ting.

A dashing knight in shining armor paused on the road.  Well, actually, the knight wasn’t dashing.  He had no horse and was moving much more slowly than a dash.  In fact he was walking. . .well, perhaps trudging up the road. . . with a slight limp.  And his armor had more dents than shine, although most of the dirt and scratches looked recent and the leather strapping was still in good repair. 

. . .

No need to read it all.  I've rewritten that one in three different styles.  The small girls I originally wrote it for have graduated college.  It hinges on a bad pun at the end.

Barbara looks.

I think it's on the second to last page.

Oh. That was a bad pun.  But it looks like it’s finished.

It's finished, but I'm not happy with it.  At the very least it needs to be edited.

I think you’ve left it set long enough.

Project

Project

This looks like a family newsletter.  Will I meet these people?

 [Will Barbara ever meet these people?  Tune in later and hope in vain that the story has been written far enough for you to find out.]