I recently read somewhere that students hate the word “prompt” as it is used for daily journaling. I don’t agree. A prompt for me can be the fuel I need to get a Poetry Friday post up.
I subscribe to Poets & Writers The Time is Now. I don’t respond every week. But this week the prompt reminded me of a poem I wrote a few years ago when I was considering a memoir in verse. It’s still sitting in my documents waiting, potential for something bigger, maybe. The prompt asked me to write a poem using a favorite song as a title and writing the memory that it brought forth.
In my senior year of high school, our house in Jackson, Mississippi was flooded 5 feet by the overflowing Pearl River. It was a time of great loss as well as many blessings and lessons about loss. The first album I bought after the flood was James Taylor’s Flag.
My memory of that time has aged along with me. My brother and I are 15 months apart. I recall feeling a growing closeness to him that I hadn’t felt before. We were in this tragedy together. Currently as we face the fading memory of our mother, we are again dealing with a tragedy together. And it may help the meaning of the poem for you to know that he is a musician who has been holding a real microphone for 40 years.
Up on the Roof
Across town
in South Jackson
because North Jackson
was under water, James Taylor
sang on the brand-new record player
we bought with the Red Cross money.Listening, I imagined stairs to a roof,
romantic evening sky, holding
hands with a boy
I didn’t feel safe with,
daring to kiss in the dark.Instead, my brother pulled me back
(c) Margaret Simon
to dance in PJs across floor mattresses.
With no one watching,
he held a shoe
for a microphone.
Reflections on the Teche 