Sunday, April 10, 2022

Game Review: Syberia: The World Before

Warning: Spoiler Alerts

In the early 2000’s, I stumbled across a seemingly humble point-and-click adventure game called “Syberia,” not knowing that it was destined to develop a huge, deeply dedicated and eternally loyal fan base. I am one of those fans. “Syberia” and its successor “Syberia 2” are works of absolute brilliance. I still tear up sometimes thinking about the ending to “Syberia 2” when the last, long-hidden herd of mammoths in the world are finally revealed. The game has scenes that are so beautiful I still remember them to this day, and its storytelling is sublime.

As with any cult-hit game both blessed and cursed with a legion of adoring fans, there was a lot of pressure on the developers for more. We Syberia fans waited thirteen long years for a third game to come out, and when it finally did, it was an unmitigated disaster and a heartbreaking disappointment to those of us who so loved the first two games. It was quite obviously rushed through, and I believe there were way too many cooks in the kitchen. It had nothing of the magic and beauty of the first two, and I feared that all hope was lost for a resurrection and that I would have to settle for to replaying the first two games in perpetuity. So I was quite wary when I heard that a fourth game, Syberia: The World Before, was out. I couldn’t stand anymore disappointment and preferred to keep my Syberia memories unsullied by yet another screw-up. I waited until just a few weeks ago to download The World Before. I’m a little less than half through the game now, and I am thrilled to report that the developers have more than redeemed themselves. It’s magnificent, and I feel that my Syberia experience is whole again.

The heroine of Syberia is Kate Walker, who starts off as a straitlaced, rules-abiding attorney. After a series of wild adventures involving a clockwork toy company that she has been asked to manage an acquisition for, all of that goes out the window and Kate’s conventional life is obliterated. She throws her lot in completely with a series of eccentrics and in trying to protect the Youkels, a remote tribe in Russia that look after the mammoths. At the beginning of The World Before, startlingly, Kate is imprisoned in a Russian work camp, being forced to mine for many hours a day alongside her cellmate, Katyusha, who she has developed a deep bond with. While trying to escape from the camp, Kate and Katyusha come across an old train car filled with treasure presumably stolen by the Brown Shadow, who are metaphorical Nazis (which is a strange quirk of the game that I will address momentarily.) Among the loot is a watercolor painting of a young woman who Katyusha insists looks remarkably like Kate. Unfortunately, Katyusha is killed by a guard in the escape attempt, but her last words are to tell Kate that she must find the girl in the painting. Thus begins Kate’s new adventure in The World Before as she obsessively hunts down Dana Roze, the young woman depicted in the watercolor. From that point on, the game toggles back and forth between Dana’s life in the the 1930’s in the fictional European city of Vaghen, and present-day Kate.

The World Before is graphically stunning, with top notch voice acting, a beautiful soundtrack and a well-paced, intricate plot that unfolds in a way that provides a satisfyingly clear sense of progression. And the puzzles are delightful. Most are only mildly challenging, but designed in such a way that I personally feel like a total genius when I solve them. (Hello, dopamine hit!) The game is also emotionally rich, with many mournful flashbacks as well as one quite harrowing fight over the phone with Kate’s estranged sister. This game was very well-thought out and lovingly made. The developers truly took time with every detail and nothing was passed over or rushed through. I have been absolutely rapt following Kate's’ journey to track down Dana and can’t wait to see how this mystery is going unfold.

The only thing that puzzles me a bit is the choice the writers made to cloak the history of the Nazi persecution of Jews in a metaphorical alternate history. The story follows the exact historical trajectory of the rise of the National Socialists in Europe and the lead up to World War Two, but the names are different. The Nazis are the Brown Shadow and the ethnic minorities are the Vaghen people. I understand that they wanted to create a new world that borders somewhat on fantasy, but this conceit is a little bit distracting. However, this is a totally forgivable quirk in an otherwise breathtaking game.

For a small taste of what I’m raving about, watch this epic opening scene of the concert in the Musical Square in Vaghen. I knew when I saw it that my beloved Syberia is once again in good hands.


 --Kristen McHenry


Sunday, April 3, 2022

Poem of the Month: Themes

A book that I semi-read some time ago will be making a fresh appearance in my life soon, and it reminded me that I wrote a poem in response to it a number of years ago. I don’t know if this breaks the rules of poetry or not, but I actually did some edits on it this morning, as I wasn’t happy with the first stanza especially. I see no reason why a poem has to remain carved unchanging in concrete for all of eternity once it’s declared finished. Also, I might write a sequel to it because I have different thoughts about it now.

The poem is called “Themes” and it’s based on the book “Now, Discover your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton. It’s a pretty well-known book that has undergone several editions over the years, but the core of it remains the same. In my estimation, their assessment system is heads-and-shoulders above most “personality test” or skills survey systems. I could go on a whole other rant about the dubious nature of most of these systems and their outlandish proclamations of pin-point accuracy and seer-like insight into the human condition, but I’ll save that for another time.

Theme

After: “Now, Discover your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton

Oasis

You sense the famine in the empty veins of leaves. Bone-birds summon you from frozen wires. Your restless need for banquets may not be logical, but you understand the hollow tuck in their frail and downy wings. You carry smoke and bells with grace. When faced with complex factors, you draw down mica and paint spirals on all locked gates in sight. Your friends call you ghost orchid, amethyst, cleric of water wheels and bright fat plums. Some are puzzled by your sprawl of bread and lilacs, but still consume your bounty. It’s your nature to know the genus of every hunger, to shimmer in the distance without effort. For you starvation is abstract. If necessary, you will grind the hulls yourself.

Star Language

Patron saint of planetariums, you negotiate the chatter of the cosmos with gentle instinct, you watch over those who watch the night from telescopes and bonfires, and send their wild prayers to Nut. To you it’s nothing, this holding of a billion silver murmurs, this rapt interpretation of the furies of the sky. You’re counted on for your precision in the loom of star ancestors. Each stitch forms a story that is granted and re-told. Some would say you speak too quickly but you know full well the urgency. You cannot stop speaking prophecy, for the stars have charmed your tongue. You are bridge and lullaby, and we will free-fall in your sound.

Blue

And not just cooling shades of sooth-song, but the white-blue sear of rage, warning blue, what comes to us in spits and sparks, danger of first illumination, wild ignition of touch and blissful transfer. Light to use your earthen body as its holy host. Blue of over-worn, blue of standing on the shore in late December twilight, blue of eggs and Sunday sweaters, blue of lone boys and low note afternoons in the only open bar, blue of going home, blue of intimate winters, blue of the enlightened heron who keeps exquisite equilibrium with cobalt sky and pond.

 

-Kristen McHenry

Sunday, March 27, 2022

Fashion Woes Part 7,038

It was recently brought to my attention that the horrific 90’s trend of super-low rise jeans is back, which confused me because I thought that high-rise jeans were all the rage now. Either style can only be worn if you have an iron-flat stomach akin to a Mobius strip, so I won’t be running out to snap them up any time soon, but it did remind me that I am perpetually in a fashion crisis that I never really get full on top of. I have a scarcity mindset when it comes to clothes, and I am loathe to throw anything away if it even slightly “works.” I have convinced myself that finding an item of clothing that fits my tall, outlier-shaped body is like finding gold and that once I have it in my possession I am morally obligated to wear it until it crumbles to dust and falls off of my body. This tendency has only gotten worse since the pandemic, during which I have been enabled to double-down on my worst fashion impulses because I am mostly locked away in my private office at work and haven’t been to a face-to-face meeting in two and half years.

I currently have a total of three pairs of jeans, none of which fit anymore, but I don’t want to get rid of them because I bought them at Cabella’s and I was so thrilled at the time to find jeans that were long enough. I need a new swimsuit now that the pool is open again, (finally!) but there are no brick and mortar shops for swimwear anymore and the thought of ordering one online fills me with existential dread. I finally threw out five pairs of shoes yesterday, most of which I held onto for an absurd amount of time because I convinced myself that sandals and dress shoes that fit my giant feet are almost impossible to come by. And let’s not even start with the hair situation. I am going through the grueling process of growing out what was once a very cute, highly-stylized asymmetrical pixie cut and it ain’t pretty, folks. I don’t know if I’m going to make it. Each day I’m seconds away from screaming “uncle” and speed-dialing my stylist. On top of it, one of these days I am going to have deal with my workout clothes situation. I’m not one of those slinky chicks who works out in revealing Gym Shark regalia (kudos to them in all sincerity; they look adorable), but I need to replace the ratty stuff out of pure self-respect. Sometimes it just astonishes me how anyone has the wherewithal to keep up on looking presentable at all. It’s exhausting.

Despite all of this, I remain irrationally optimistic that one day I will hit some sort of wardrobe sweet spot, where all of my garments are on-trend yet also somehow fit me, my jeans are a reasonable mid-rise and long enough, and my hair is in a state that doesn’t require sixteen barrettes and half a bottle of hairspray. A girl can dream. In the meantime, I comfort myself with the thought that there is one tiny, niche area in which I do have my sartorial game together: Summer nightwear. Last summer, there was a horrific and highly-unusual heatwave in Seattle, and I went a bit crazy in my delirium and bought eight pairs of silky, richly-colored nightwear sets (some even have lace trim!) so I will look like a proper feminine-type woman on summer nights, instead of a lumberjack like I do now. So at least in one area I’m not a complete disaster.

Since the world is a sad and scary place these days, enjoy this hilarious and suspenseful clip of a Husky throwing a temper tantrum. Will he ever get out of that tub?

 


--Kristen McHenry

Sunday, March 20, 2022

Poem Review: The Marshes of Glynn by Sidney Lanier

Once upon a recent walk, I picked up from a Free Little Library a fragile, yellowing paperback entitled “American Verse from the Colonial Days to the Present.” Until recently, I haven’t been able to actually read it due to the glasses situation being so out of whack and the book’s print being so tiny and faded, but alas! I have finally been able to peruse some of the amazing work in the book and I have been discovering a lot of poets that I knew little to nothing about, Sidney Lanier being the one I shall discuss here, and specifically, his poem “The Marshes of Glynn.” Why everyone on the planet is not intimately familiar with “The Marshes of Glynn” is a crime and a tragedy. It’s a jaw-dropping, epic poem of pure genius and I can’t believe this is the first I’ve heard of it.

Sidney Lanier was born in 1842 in Macon, Georgia. He was as equally fond of music as poetry, and enormously talented at both. Unfortunately, his life was cut short at the age of 39 due to a long battle with tuberculosis, which he contracted after being captured and imprisoned during the Civil War. However, he left behind a significant body of work, including his most famous poem, “The Marshes of Glynn.” It’s a work of spiritually and passion, a love letter to nature, and, I believe, quite possibly an inspiration to some of Walt Whitman’s later work.

Reading “The Marshes of Glynn,” it is apparent that Lanier was musician in his soul. “Marshes” reads like a symphony, with long, sweeping passages that reach dramatic heights, then slowly ratchet down until climbing back up again into grand, crashing crescendos. Lanier uses repetition and pacing in the same way that a musician does, slowing and speeding the work to reflect his deep emotions tied to the marshes—feelings of ecstasy and joy, the soothing of despair, and a deep, boundary-less connection to nature. This small passage from the very long poem encapsulates it’s spirit:

Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight,
Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of light.
And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands high?
The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea and the sky!
A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, broad in the blade,
Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a shade,
Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain,
To the terminal blue of the main.
Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea?
  Somehow my soul seems suddenly free
From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin,
By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn.

“Marshes” is also a story of redemption, healing and forgiveness through the love of beauty:

Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won
God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain
And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.
As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,
Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God:
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies
In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and the skies:

Long ago, I had a minor goal of memorizing one poem a month, which fell by the wayside fairly quickly. “Marshes” has inspired me to start memorizing poems again. I will never memorize the whole thing, but definitely small passages, to comfort myself and also, let’s face it—impress people at parties, should I ever attend one again.

If you would like to read “Marshes” in its entirety, you can do so at this link. If you would like it read to you, watch the video below:


 --Kristen McHenry

 

Sunday, March 13, 2022

Lessons from the Squat Rack, Farming Simulation Hell, Glasses Glory

Over the last six weeks or so, I’ve been working with my trainer on learning the squat rack. I can now semi-competently dip under the (unloaded) bar, position it on my upper back, and lift it out of the rack without teetering wildly. It’s almost more of a balancing exercise than a strength exercise. And it’s the most frustrating and emotionally charged exercise I’ve learned to date. The first few times I did it, I felt genuinely angry. I resented the feeling of carrying that much weight on my back and my struggle to balance the bar properly. Even though I freely chose to learn it, it felt burdensome and chore-like. I’ve come to love the feeling of physically challenging myself and getting through hard sets, but somehow this one caused me angst—perhaps because it’s such a literal, physical manifestation of carrying weight on my back. I have weight to carry in my life and a part of me doesn’t want it. But each time I successfully lift that bar, my back gets more adjusted to the sensation of the weight, my body and brain work more quickly to coordinate properly, and the whole process becomes smoother. And I feel like I’ve won the fight--just like I plan to in life.

Speaking of winning the fight, after having played Stardew Valley to death, I’ve become obsessed with a new farming simulator called “No Place Like Home.” The premise is that the earth got so polluted and trash-laden that almost everyone peaced out to live in a pre-fab colony on Mars, and only you and a few stalwarts decided to stick around on earth, clean up, and start growing things again. It’s a very fun, colorful, meditative game, and deeply satisfying in that a great deal of time is spent vacuuming up huge mounds of garbage with a super-powered vacuum pack. It’s great...however the developers, in preparing for the full release of the game, released one patch and really cocked it up, then rapidly released another patch to fix the screw up, which made everything even worse. At first there weren’t enough goats, then there were a comical number of goats everywhere, then the goats vanished from your farm entirely, you couldn’t find the parts to fix the dam, the robots llamas went haywire, the dog you were supposed to tame glitched out, and the lady in the desert wouldn’t give you the final quest so you could move on to the Sunken City and find your long-lost grandpa. Also, they changed the previously relaxing sound of the vacuuming to a jarring, jangely, “pop, pop, pop” sound, instantly enraging most of the players, who ranted about it in en-masse on the Steam forums. It was a disaster, folks. You have no idea what I’ve been going through over here. I had to start over three times, and I’m just holding my breath and trusting that in this last iteration, everything’s finally been fixed. I’m not too mad at the developers though—they actually took the time to personally respond to one of my e-mails, and they seem to be really trying. It’s not easy to be a small indy developer these days, and I laud them for their efforts.

I mentioned on Facebook that my new glasses finally came in, and earlier than expected! The instant I got the text from the optometrist, I took off from work, dashed over to the eye doc’s, collected my new and glorious specs, and came home to pop out my contacts and try them on. The first thing I did was test out an old paperback poetry book that I’ve had on my list to read forever, but haven’t been able to with a 15-year old prescription. Voila! I was actually able to read the print. I wanted to cry. The new specs are so nice that I’ve even overcome my vanity enough to wear them to work a few times a week. Also, unbeknownst to me, it turns out that the frames are Kate Spade, so not only can I see, I’m also fancy. Look out world. I’m watching you—through my new, properly-prescribed lenses. I can see everything.

Enjoy this instructional video on how to cure chronic nice-lady-ness. I learned a lot!



 Kristen McHenry





Sunday, February 27, 2022

The Artist

As the world burns, I feel that this week calls for something uplifting, yet tinged with mournfulness. I found this poem that I wrote some years ago about an artist in the Arizona desert facing his last days. I had almost forgotten about it. It seems fitting somehow. 

Hold tight and keep looking for the humanity in each person. 

 

The Artist


Near blind

from years of letting in the sky,

deaf from the coyote songs

that score the naked desert--

my last act: to lift

a wizened brush and draft

the horizon of my crossing.


The gods will ask me

did I do right by what resides

in all the lavish desert—for the lizard's eyesight,

for Coyote

who dissolves into the bush?

For the disgraced

night sky, mottled with a light that isn't hers.


And I will say, it wasn't love as I have known it.

Instead it was a falling in.

A disability of love.

I could do nothing

but paint the nothing I became.


Tell the ones who come

to leave my body.

Let it fall to scavengers.

My eyes

have taught me

that God

is generous:

those, leave open

so they might offer

sky

back to sky.


I will be savage with peace.


--Kristen McHenry

 


 

 

Sunday, February 20, 2022

I’m That Girl!

Since I live in a bat cave, only to emerge for work, the gym, and a weekly grocery run, until recently I was blissfully unaware of the “That Girl” YouTube trend. I came across it while I was perusing videos by Abby Sharp, a common-sense dietitian who I watch now and then. Abby was very fired up about the proliferation of “That Girl” videos, which I have come to learn are self-improvement videos, usually made by models, minor internet stars or fitness gurus, detailing their uber-healthy morning routines. From what I’ve seen from my relatively shallow dive into these videos, these routines invariably involve a “gratitude journal,” a green drink, fruit, a workout, and a skincare regimen. The idea is that these routines will lead to a healthier physical and mental mindset, improve your productivity, and allow you to be “the best version of yourself.” The problem is that they are laughably unrealistic for the average person, which is why Abby took umbrage with the whole thing while reviewing a “That Girl” video by someone named Vanessa Tiiu. I have no idea who Vanessa Tiiu is, but she certainly seems to have some leisure time on her hands. Her morning routine is lovely. She gets up early, spends about fifteen minutes rubbing various products onto her face, drinks a big glass of lemon water, and then writes in not one, but two journals, followed by a breakfast of some sort of oatmeal-looking thing topped with berries, and the inevitable green drink. She follows all of that with a full workout and a long walk, all while encouraging her viewers to do the same. Personally, I think how out of touch Vanessa is with the average working person is hilarious, but Abby is a bit of a perfectionist and I could tell it got under her skin and made her feel inferior. It didn’t make me feel inferior in the least. I found the whole thing quite inspiring, in fact. I shall now present, for your edification, my own “That Girl” routine. Feel free to take from it whatever works for you:

Switch alarm off at 5:45 a.m. and cover head with blanket, trying to stave off creeping existential despair. Fall vaguely back asleep until jerked awake by the terror of having possibly overslept. Check clock and groan. Throw off blanket and head to the bathroom for morning pee. Vacillate on whether or not to weigh self, scrutinize body in contact-lens-less eyes, and decide against it. Stumble to kitchen for cup of coffee and head to computer room to look at news. Give up in horror after about three minutes and switch on video game instead. Play video game for too long in attempt to tame cows so I can trade milk to the local tinker for weapons upgrade. Reluctantly switch off video game and go to living room to get dressed. Hate what I picked out the night before and creep into bedroom (if Mr. Typist is still sleeping) to get new clothes. Pick out another wrong thing in the dark and decide to just give up and go with original wrong thing. Suck down another cup of coffee while getting dressed and debating whether or not to do morning ab exercises. Ultimately negotiate with self to do them at work on my lunch break knowing full well I likely won’t do them at work on my lunch break. Decidedly skip the gratitude journal, as it dulls my anger and I need my anger for fuel. Mindlessly wolf down a few breakfast pickles while deciding whether or not to make my typical fried egg over tuna or just get something quick from the case at work. (This one is 50-50.) Head back to the bathroom to brush teeth and slather on makeup while feeling vaguely resentful about the professional necessity of slathering on makeup. Do final face check and decide it will have to do. Suck down one more hasty cup of coffee before popping an Altoid (coffee breath) and shambling into coat. Grab purse, adjust headphones, fire up a podcast so I don’t have to be alone with my thoughts, and head out the door.

I don’t detail all of this to make you feel inferior. After all, as Abby points out, we must all do what is best for us personally and not compare ourselves to others. I’m just telling you what makes me my best self, that’s all. It has taken years of practice to cultivate this routine, and you shouldn’t feel bad if you can’t achieve those heights right out of the gate. Start small and build up! Before you know it, you too will be That Girl.

I leave you with this quick and funny video from comedian Kallmekris, because we could all use a good laugh these days:


--Kristen McHenry

Sunday, February 13, 2022

Fun with Paramecia, Gym Fail, Appeasing the Coffee God

Recently Mr. Typist bought a microscope, and it took me back to a strangely happy memory of when I was in grade school and we would go out into the woods behind the school, gather pond water in baby food jars, then look at it under a microscope. The first time I saw a paramecium, it filled me with elation and a deep sense of spiritual comfort. It felt like such a miracle that there could be an entire unseen universe of tiny busy life forms carrying on their functions, breathing, excreting and pulsating deep under the surface. I loved looking at the paramecia, and if I had a better brain for science and math, it would have inspired me to become a biologist. When it warms up a bit and we get through a fairly daunting apartment-improvement project, Mr. Typist and I are going to go gather up some water samples from our local parks and shorelines and see what we find under the lens. I’m super-excited about it.

My trainer recently advanced me to the big girl stuff: hip thrusts and the squat rack--the real squat rack, not the safe and contained Smith machine that does all of the stabilization for you. Both have had mixed results. I’d always see these women at the gym doing this mysterious exercise where they lean their backs against a weight bench with a loaded deadlifting bar across their hips and lift their butts and up and down. It looks very cool and next-level, but I didn’t understand the purpose. My trainer explained that it’s the most effective glut-building exercise and took me through how to do it. I’ve tried it a few times on my own and so far I’ve found it horribly awkward and uncomfortable. It’s a feat of dexterity just to wrestle the 45-pound bar onto to my hips and at the same get myself positioned onto the bench with my back in the right place. And damn—those thrusts do indeed work the gluts like crazy, but each time after I do them my hips are vaguely achy for days. I think hip thrusts are best left to those who are going for the Kim Kardashian look, which I do not want and will never achieve anyway. My butt has always been relatively flat no matter what weight I’m at. I just comfort myself by looking at ads from the 70’s when flat butts were all the rage. There was a similar situation with the squat rack—lifting the bar out of the rack was laborious and awkward, I flailed around trying to balance it on my shoulders, and this morning I woke up with fiery nerve pain shooting from my right knee into the top of my quads. I’m guessing this is from squatting with an unbalanced bar yesterday. I hope to God this just means that I need better technique and not that I’m simply too old to be doing athlete-level moves in the gym.

As part of the aforementioned apartment improvement project, Mr. Typist and I bought a new, fancy, stainless steel coffee maker. It looks nice and it’s very high tech and all, but the first morning it brewed coffee, we discovered a quirk: Just as it’s about to finish brewing a pot, it emits a tremendous, ear-shattering, volcanic roar akin to the sound the Blue Angels make during their practice runs. It’s only once, and it’s only at the end of the brew cycle, but it’s so loud it wakes me up every single morning. Mr. Typist and have speculated that perhaps it is demanding a virgin sacrifice. We don’t know how to appease the coffee pot god and as such, this seems to be a permanent condition. I’m just considering it a pre-alarm and calling it a feature.

Enjoy this aquatic romp through the mysteries of the deep with our friend Zefrank1. Warning: corny dad jokes and sac talk abound. 


 --Kirsten McHenry

Sunday, February 6, 2022

The Trouble with Ravens

I’ve had all kinds of stuff going on this weekend and cranking out an entire post seems like a bridge too far, so today you shall be “treated” to another old poem of mine. I will return to my regularly scheduled posts next week, as I do have a lot to talk about. (We got a microscope! I learned Hip Thrusts!) For now, I hope you enjoy this poem about the wily raven. A proper post is to come next week.
 
 
The Trouble with Ravens
 
is who they were born from.
The first one ever
was wicked beyond imagining.
Who else could steal the sun,
regurgitate stars, drag
Night into the world
with such a frail and lazy mouth? This
is their cunning legacy,
wrapped in their DNA like a long
stray hair.
Because of this,
they have no shame.

So be careful when Raven
beguiles you from telephone wires
or worse yet, those
misty reeds; when he twists
his head and peers at you,  quick-faced,
grease-eyed. He wants
your bread, your bullets,
your riddles, the last
dreamy petal
fallen to the night table.

He wants to brag
of how he is so beloved
that the brightest, most breakable girls
name themselves “Raven”; shape
their eyes like his with kohl,
and wander
in mourning through the world
with their glossy hearts and feathered lips.

He will tell you all this.
He will sing you songs
you are most unprepared to hear.
He will flutter before you, holding
a volatile orb in his beak.

He will offer it, offer it.

--Kristen McHenry



 


Sunday, January 30, 2022

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