"Laundry" by Ruth Moose

And because I can't stand not having a poem, here is a nice one that I didn't know before today.

Laundry

All our life

so much laundry;

each day’s doing or not

comes clean,

flows off and away

to blend with other sins

of this world. Each day

begins in new skin,

blessed by the elements

charged to take us

out again to do or undo

what’s been assigned.

From socks to shirts

the selves we shed

lift off the line

as if they own

a life apart

from the one we offer.

There is joy in clean laundry.

All is forgiven in water, sun

and air. We offer our day’s deeds

to the blue-eyed sky, with soap and prayer,

our arms up, then lowered in supplication.

Source: Making the Bed (Main Street Rag Press, 2004)

Laundry by Ruth Moose : The Poetry Foundation

Poetry, Clotheslines and Rain

Here's a great collection of poems about clothing: from the Academy of American Poets.

It's a good thing to find today, as I'm trying to find online the manufacturer of my new clothesline, because I need a replacement pole, because it's not working yet. This is a sad tale. Franslei mounted the unit out of which 5 lines pull (wacky syntax) on the wall of the garage. That worked. But the bracket which receives the bar to which the 5 lines are attached at the other end (better syntax) doesn't mount properly to the fence opposite the wall. Too low, too crooked. So, instead of hanging laundry in bliss last weekend, I cried. Disappointment is rampant as we move into this new terrific house. We'll get there, it's true.

So, the AAP's collection of poems is mostly about clothes. Lots of shoes. But I need a poem about clotheslines, so here is one of my favorites, by Jorie Graham, from a Vassar website, 'Words in Flight' -- an English Thesis by Shari Margolin.

"The Geese"by Jorie Graham

Today as I hang out the wash I see them again, a code
as urgent as elegant,
tapering with goals.
For days they have been crossing. We live beneath these
geese

as if beneath the passage of time, or a most perfect heading.
Sometimes I fear their relevance.
Closest at hand,
between the lines,

the spiders imitate the paths the geese won't stray from,
imitate them endlessly to no avail:
things will not remain connected,
will not heal,

and the world thickens with texture instead of history,
texture instead of place.
Yet the small fear of the spiders
binds and binds

the pins to the lines, the lines to the eaves, to the pincushion bush,
as if, at any time, things could fall further apart
and nothing could help them
recover their meaning. And if these spiders had their way,

chainlink over the visible world,
would we be in or out? I turn to go back in.
There is a feeling the body gives the mind
of having missed something, a bedrock poverty, like falling

without the sense that you are passing through one world,
that you could reach another
anytime. Instead the real
is crossing you,

your body an arrival
you know is false but can't outrun. And somewhere in between
these geese forever entering and
these spiders turning back,
this astonishing delay, the everyday, takes place.

(She ends her sentences with prepositions sometimes. Poets are allowed.) (Her poem doesn't have a moon in it, but this beautiful photo calms me.)

Three Day Weekend Blahs

It was a great day Saturday, a great day Sunday, and today was the pittso. All told I think I put 7 loads behind me this weekend. Tshirts still hanging in a colorful cluster from hangers in the bathroom, and Stella's red bra and Jackson's socks on the rack in the dining room. Upstairs I trimmed and watered all the orchids, philodendrons, cactus, messy messy and not really laundry, but neglected.

And my socks are lined up on their own rack, looking out the window, down into the back yard, where the squirrel ran along the phone lines and the sun set behind expensive hills. Stella's homework took all day. I raked the leaves finally. It's a boring life, when it's all about laundry and houseplants. We wrote 5 poems for her homework -- she wrote hers and I wrote mine. I want to talk about the books I'm reading, but I think that belongs on the other site and I'm tired. Why are my kids yelling downstairs? I don't have a photo of Stella's red bra, but somewhere I have one of her in her red pajamas.

This will be a listing of every load of laundry I do in the coming year. Sounds like fun, yeah? You doubters, you laundry non-lovers, you'll see. Laundry is the path to righteousness. The poem of my eternal soul. Laundry, laundry, laundry. You'll see.

And my own poem: An American Voice

All this morning I have been thinking what to say, hanging

the blue footy pajamas up next to the tablecloth, one pin

for two corners, wondering if one person could stop you

with the right word, a white nightgown flapping,

for a girl grown too big, the right word,

not complicated, it could be a small word, bright –

as you prepare to start it, to launch

your word war upon the worlds –

I imagine your word leaving your mouth

like a poison, pulsing out pinched and puckered lips,

it drips on your shiny chin, it could burn your skin away,

your blotched skull, the cracked bloody crust of your tongue,

even your very own straight teeth, loose and tipping –

All this morning I have stood in the shadow of your

word, listening from inside the clean prison of my

unspeaking, unsteady, here, where I have fought

to live, I have painted it yellow, filled up my tight cells with

lilies, I have pretended, opened my mouth only to eat –

I wonder if one person could stop you, kneel down

next to you, kneeling quick and hard, the way a mother

grabs her child, caught jabbing a stick at the cat,

cornered – I would grip your shoulders, shove you

slightly, snap, shake, put my face close to

yours, my mouth right up to your mouth,

an inch away – wondering if I could move

my word from my mouth to your mouth,

saying no –

January 2003