The poet Christopher Howell wrote a poem called ,
DINNER OUT.
It opened with 12 lines, a middle part and then, 7 lines.
I’ve pulled out the middle part, here it is:
“What would I have?
Sweet and sour?
Chow mein with little wagon wheels shaped
slices of okra and those crinkly noodles
my father called deep fried worms?
Fried rice?
Among such succulence, what did it matter?
We could eat ’til we were glad and full, the whole
family sighing with the pleasure of it.
And then the tea!
All this for about six bucks, total,
my father, for that once-in-a-while, feeling
flush in the glow of our happy faces
and asking me, “How are you doing, son?”
…………………………………………………………
I sit here and see another story on transparent tissue
overlaid on that poem, and another and another,
without number until the person the boy was
became a man and found he was formed by these bits of life.
When we speak of change now, as the portal to our future,
none of this is lost, only absorbed, a melded mosaic on which
the next tissue forms of another material. still transparent.
The way that boy might throw away the script and write into
another beauty and possibility is to let go of the actual files of
stories and information-in. Maybe the computer is allowing
that.
All of this so I can talk myself into trashing MY physical files!
with love …
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette