RE: An Ode to Mom, Robert Service, and The Cremation of Sam McGee
You have so written a poem! And a good one at that! I dig the mixing up of prose, meter, and free poetry - it really works for me. Love this tribute to your mother, and having a bit more information about you.
"Lay a quilt over my casket, not a floral display,
and my coronet over that; find a trumpeter if you can
though if you skip the service, I understand,
but the church ladies owe me a funeral luncheon
for all the times I've served."
Your mom is a poet too.
I also love the Service ballad. Your mom had that memorized? That alone is a major feat. I wonder why she did that? It's a really good story, and excellent writing (your professors were jealous). Did your mom ever say why that poem is the one she chose to learn? As inexplicable as Sam McGhee heading to the arctic.
"He was always cold" - so was she, back then - and maybe her dad read it to her? I'll have to ask - thank God she's still here and it's not too late - unlike the Steemian whose aunt died and, later, sifting through her things, all these questions arose - TOO LATE to ask her.
Thank you so much for the kind words! I may be able to wax poetic now and then, but the structure of a poem eludes me. It gets mathematical, as you know. Ah, that may explain (partly) why you're such a natural; you get the math, you internalized it, you employ it, apparently effortlessly, while I do that thing someone dubbed a "laxative" effect of freewriting. Just let it all out. Gaah!
Thanks again for reading and commenting. :)
Just phoned my mom. Her dad never read Sam McGee to her. She found it in one of his poetry books when her high school English teacher assigned the class to read something out loud to everyone. Mom ended up reading all the Robert Service poems in the book, and another poetry book with Eugene Fields ("Little Boy Blue") and other classics, loved by the masses, panned by the critics. :)