1952
AUGUST
Maple leaves wilt
to plastic wrap
in the tent of heat
pitched over the day.
Hidden cicadas buzz
like the back doorbell
under the thumb
of a neighbor’s child.
Beneath a tree-umbrella,
a girl rides a raft
of roots, dirt-cool,
idly rubbing the bark.
PJC 1982
Until recently, I could at best say that my poem "August" is about a girl who is happy in summer—a thought about its content. The images held emotion that created certain feelings, but I couldn't name them. I turned to Marshall B. Rosenberg and his writing* on "How we are likely to feel when our needs are being met"*—with a list of 110 descriptions I could choose from. Then I reread my poem, awake to new possibilities.
Having only a limited understanding of emotion as being stronger than feeling, I found an explanation written by American psychologist Paul Ekman. He has developed a widely accepted theory of six basic emotions and their physical responses, surprising me by the limited number. The emotions are sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust.* "August" gives voice to happiness.
Feelings are something different. They are our conscious expression of our reaction to emotions. They are numerous, all-embracing, but at the same time more defining. On Rosenberg's list I found the words that express the feelings I could imagine as having been mine at age seven that summer. On the roots of my tree, a young maple, I rode with my arm around the mid-size trunk, absorbed, adventurous, alive, calm, contented, happy, quiet, peaceful, and especially, free—trusting the tree.
BEYOND REACH
My daughters stand at my door.
I can’t get out of bed.
Three times I’ve tried,
but each time I turn
and put my head
back on the pillow.
I’ve never closed my mind
to morning—
forgotten how
yellow forsythia
waits out winter,
cupped in leaves,
or thin, sweet cocoa
helps me struggle out of ache.
“What do you want us to do?”
Can’t they read my eyes?
There’s no meaning—
like fingers new to Braille.
“I’ll call Miriam,”
my older daughter says
and disappears to dial the therapist.
There’s nothing to hear
but the phone
ringing beyond my reach.
PJC 1989
In my poem, "Beyond Reach," a mother has been left by her lover. Fear is the poem's clear emotion. Rosenberg's list of feelings* for when our needs are not being met contains feelings that could have been mine that morning: ashamed, bewildered, confused, helpless, lonely, overwhelmed, sad, and scared.
Standing the cold buds of forsythia in a pitcher of warm water, inviting their yellow flowers to blossom, was a tradition I learned from my mother, but she was no longer there, and I was no longer a child. The cup of cocoa, topped with thick, real whipped cream, was on a counter in New Hampshire where my dad had brought his family while he interviewed a prospective minister for our church, but my dad was no longer there, and I was no longer a teenager. In the emergency of this morning, my older daughter became the mother's voice for her younger sister in our home.
Three weeks later, on the morning I returned from the hospital, I stood at the end of our driveway where the lawn would soon spurt fat, yellow dandelions and said to the sky, "There must be a better way." I knew what I had to do. I had set my course forward. I felt relieved, grateful, confident, optimistic, and trusting.
* Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life (Encinitas, CA:
PuddleDancer Press, 2003).
* Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 44-45.
* “Sadness: An emotional state characterized by feelings of disappointment, grief or
hopelessness.” “Happiness: A pleasant emotional state that elicits feelings of joy, contentment and satisfaction.” “Fear: A primal emotion that is important to survival and triggers a fight or flight response.” https://online.uwa.edu/infographics/basic-emotions/#:~:text=The%20Six%20Basic%20Emotions&text=They%20include%20sadness%2C%20happiness%2C%20fear,%2C%20anger%2C%20surprise%20and%20disgust
* Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 44-45.