The Rocking Chair

You must call up every strength you own
And you can rip off the whole facial mask.
excerpted from "After Experience Taught Me..." by W.D. Snodgrass

Usually when I clean the house, my thoughts ramble to anything but the chore I am doing. However, this week I tried to dust in a state of mindfulness. This act opened up my writer’s soul, particularly when I came to the rocking chair, an item which is actually more story than furniture.

I bought the chair in the mid-1970’s while I was a student at Syracuse. In retrospect, I don’t know where I got the money for it, because I was a typical impoverished college student.  The chair is a graceful antique rocker, made of tiger wood maple. The finish was peeling, and years later my husband refinished it, probably not in a way that held the rocker's value as a collectable.  However, its value to me is not in the chair, but in the story; I bought the chair from W.D. Snodgrass, one of the great poets of the 20th century.

Dusting the rocker, I prayed that the legacy of this writer, would tell me the words that I need to be a good writer. Lately I am dancing too much with poor confidence. This will pass, this writer's mood, but so much more quickly when I hold fast to the truth that I am not alone; not alone in writing or living.

www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/w-d-snodgrass