When I came in from the year

For Christmas I received Kate Clanchy's book "How to Grow your own Poem". I haven't read it all yet, in fact, I have barely dipped into the beginning of it. I guess it is not a book to be read at one sitting, or read only once. Already I can tell her ideas about writing poetry resonate closely with my own.

The basic premise of much of the book seems to be one I have used often as a teacher ... to take an existing poem as a model, and make it your own. So this, my first poem of a new year is inspired, at least in part, by her, and (very, very loosely) by Edip Cansever's poem "The Table" 

When I came in from the year

And took it off

I did try

To hang 2020 on its peg

As I should

The latest in a neat, long line

But

Somehow

It missed

And fell to lie

Crumpled on the floor

In a heap

And I found

I scarcely had the energy

Even

To lean down

And pick it up

And shake it out

And put it in its place

And yet if I had

Hung it 

As I should

Perhaps you would

Only ever see

The smooth

Drab

Outerside

But from

Its heap on the floor

We saw

Glimpses

Of its lining

And some

It is true

Is dull and grey and practical

And heavy

Very heavy

But

Someone, somehow, at some point

Had also stitched

An inner

Patchwork

Layer

Too

Multi-coloured

Many hued

And in that crumpled heap

That I

barely wanted to reach down and touch and shake out and hang up

That

Too

was visible

Each bright, mismatched remnant

Each vivid, tattered scrap

The course roughness

And the silken smooth

An unplanned jumble

With frayed edges

As patchwork

Perhaps was meant to be

Before it became

Some neatly crafted art

And each vibrant-coloured snippet of memory

Held together

By fine, silver threads

Which

For all their apparent fragility

Would not

Could not

Did not

Break

So when I do

In fact

Dig deep

Lean down

Pick up

The coat

I think

This time

This one

This year

I’ll hang it

Inside out

Happy New Year!