”The words do not take me to the reason I made the entry, but back to the
felt experience, whatever it was. This is important. I can, then,
think forward again to the idea–that is, the significance of the event
rather than back upon it. It is the instant I try to catch in the notebooks,
not the comment, not the thought.” —Mary Oliver on the notes in her notebooks –
Home from a Trip
by Nils Peterson
Home from a trip, trying to remember
at least the bedrooms where we stayed,
the things in them, the basins, the tables
with electric kettles, instant coffee and tea,
the cabinets, where once in awhile I’d hang
my coat. Wallpaper? I remember it in just
one room – St. Ives, a 1930ish vertical line
of roses between thin blue stripes.
Often now when I reach for a word, it takes
a day for it to arrive through the clutter, but
images swarm about me wanting to be seen,
wanting to be remembered – the angle of my
childhood bed-room roof in the chauffeur’s flat
above the garage, the noise, clatter, and shining
of the great machines on the night shift my father
worked during the war, that somehow I visited
once – the smell of hot oil against the grind
of metal – now the train station in Kentucky where
I see myself sixteen and suitcased arriving
at school. How can I see myself?
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