Poem of the Month, Ah, Memories

Even though it’s still technically January, I’m mentally bumping it ahead to February. January has been a fiasco and I just want it to be over. I don’t know if Mercury is in retrograde or what, but everything I have tried to accomplish has crashed and burned and I feel like I’ve been wading through waste-deep mud. Everything feels slow and clunky and confusing, and I blame it all on January. I just want to start afresh with a shiny new month. So I’m pretending it’s February. And as such, I am posting my Poem-of-the-Month a few days ahead of schedule.

Years ago, I was involved in a long, drawn-out poetry competition wherein one poet was eliminated each week over twelve weeks. It caused me a fair bit of literary trauma and it is an experience that I shall not deem to repeat. It was frankly quite vicious and soul-destroying, and it’s when I first learned that poets are cruel. That having been said, I came in fourth overall, and I won a few of the weekly challenges. This poem is one of the winners. I can’t recall all of the specifics of the assignment, but we had to write a poem about Dolly Parton using phrases from some of her songs. My poem was deemed by the All-Knowing God King of Poetry Judges to be the best one that week. The following week I got completely brutalized, of course. Nothing like a little psychological abuse to keep me on my toes. Enjoy!

 

The Ballad of Mama, Porter, Sinner, and Number One Fan

 

When did you love Dolly most?

When she was a hummingbird,

thrumming to stun.

My lithest daughter, my rawboned one,

sang vibrato; lullaby bait

to keep the grieving from our gate.

We joined with her, round by round.

Little sparrow, little sparrow,

your voice has that high, lonesome sound.

 

When did you love Dolly most?

When she was a raven,

bedraggled with sorrow,

and I sought soulfulness to borrow.

My first in-love-with, Lady Lament.

We sang together of sweet descent;

baptized anguish, but never drowned.

Little sparrow, little sparrow,

your voice has that high, lonesome sound.

When did you love Dolly most?

When she was a swan

unwinding her throat,

holy host to the mercy note.

Her gospel pierced like a keening wren,

and Jesus made me whole again.

Sinner lost and poor man found.

Little sparrow, little sparrow,

your voice has that high, lonesome sound.

When did you love Dolly most?

When she was a Scarlet Ibis;

a quick flame branding sea.

My voice has long been dead in me;

a corpse bud on a sickly vine.

But it waxes bright as clementine

when I sing with her, my bold unbound.

Little sparrow, little sparrow,

your voice has that high, lonesome sound.

--Kristen McHenry

Quoted Songs: Little Sparrow, Blue Valley Songbird