It was a very good year? Dec. 30, 2012
As the year concludes, I keep thinking about the change of
priorities poem from 2003, and some of the other poems posted – the “gilt
frames” and the “trickling up” and some of the things she said to me early on about
her past, about how jealous her husband had been, always suspicious of her
cheating on him when she claimed she never did, and how on she met that little
woman on some cruise who taught her what she needed, perhaps paving the way for
a way of life that she was already inclined to do, finding the code that opened
it all up for her, allowing her to become one of the privileged with an
entourage, she becoming part of that class of people she had previously hated.
All of this is simply speculation, guess work based on clues
that might or might not be real, a path of bread crumbs she has spread behind
her in a series of poems.
There are so many gaps in her official history, such as the
period after she gave up teaching and before she took to the sea with the band,
when she still worked as a barmaid for a 7th Avenue Deli in New York or when
she lived for the first time on this side of the Hudson, when she hung out at
the dance center on Broadway, desperate to make a living as a singer, while
tutoring people, when finally she met her husband and he helped her make an CD,
joining her husband on tour with the band in early 2004.
The time line doesn’t always line up since her poem said she
met the old lady in 2003, but she really didn’t go on tour until 2004.
But 2003 was a banner year because she had finally found
someone who could help fulfill her dream of making it in the music industry,
who helped shape her music. Before that, she was just a girl pounding out her
songs on guitar.
I don’t think she took into account how even when they went
on tour together with a band full of perverted old men, she would find herself
in yet another trap, eye candy for audience to look at during those long days and
nights at sea
When exactly did she meet the little old woman who “gorged
on brothers and sisters” and what exactly did the old woman teach her that
changed her life.
From the perspective of the poem, 2003 was an important year
in her life, one in which she changed priorities, but from what to what? And where does that leave her now as whole
decade later? Will she write a poem ten years from now about 2013 is a year of
changing priorities? Will she finally find her portrait hanging on gilt walls
in a gilt frame?
Who can say?
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