Today is the first Friday of the month, so we have an Inklings Challenge. Catherine asked us to use a prompt from Audrey Gidman’s June list:
“Read “Digging” by Seamus Heaney. Think about something that has been handed down to you—from a parent, a grandparent, an elder in your life—that feels alive in you now. Think of how it is the same and think of how it has transformed in you. Notice how, for Heaney, it’s gardening and writing—two kinds of digging, but still the digging continues through the generations. Write a poem that digs into what was handed down to you and examines what you carry now.”
This summer I have been doing a good deal of babysitting for my grandchildren. This has been both a privilege and a challenge. I have a lullaby that was passed down to me that I sang to my children and continue to sing to my grandchildren (even to Leo who cringes every time).
Singing
Inspired by Seamus Heaney
My grandson asks for a lullaby
while he covers his head, hiding
beneath the blankets.
When my mother sang an operatic alto,
in a foreign language she’d never spoken,
I hid from her joy, let her vibrato shiver
my heart under a pillow.
I didn’t want to know opera
like her father taught her,
but she took me anyway,
read the plot before curtain call.
I made my body small
in the plush red theatre seat.
Now, I see her face in mine.
My voice cracks on the high notes.
My smile wrinkles into soft blush.
Singing was the last thing to go.
Here, I sit perched on the edge of the bed
leaning into a seven year old boy
claiming his independence
while wishing
for a song to cling to.
Margaret Simon, draft
Check out other Inklings poems below:
Catherine @Reading to the Core
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Mary Lee @Another Year of Reading
Molly @Nix the Comfort Zone
Reflections on the Teche 