"Legacy"
I have rewritten this poem three times now, and I am still not satisfied with the form.
At first, I wanted to make the last line of each stanza
into a subplot. That did not work with the amount of time I had initially
decided to invest in the poem. Also, I originally intended to adhere
to the male description in the ad. That all changed when my 82 year
old mother began to look over my shoulder as she paced back and forth through
the room where I was word processing. I thought I had better change
the sex and the age, since she had been a nourishing and loving single
parent to me (and proud of it) for most of my life. Also,
I wanted the concept of a well to be the metaphor for the ebbing life of
the subject of the poem, but I had to opt for a simile. Again, the
time factor, prevented me from achieving that goal at this writing.
"Legacy" moved both my daughter, an immovable 20 year
old Stanford University senior and me in the end, so I feel that the experience
is present and communicative. I enjoyed writing it--and reading it.
The thoughts came fast as I sat in my car waiting for my daughter to get
her daily veggie burger. It took about one hour to write, rewrite,
and word process from the scribbling I had done on the edges of the newspaper
in which I saw the ad.