Elizabeth Bishop En El Portico: Casa Lota De Macedo Soares Poem by Dennis Ryan

Friday afternoon, January 22 and January 29,2021

'Being a poet is one of the unhealthier jobs--no regular hours, so many temptations! '
--Elizabeth Bishop

Lota has stepped out, and the cat is nowhere
to be found as I find myself quite restless here
today, sitting as I am, alone, with my thoughts,
my life not having quite turned out as it ought.

I wonder. I wonder if this statement is accurate?
Like other young women my age, I had plans
and had meant to follow through on them,
but then my life had taken a different direction.

Is 'decide' the right term? I chose poetry?
Is this exactly what happened? These words
don't really express—Is writing poems a real job?
And about my body? Can I put this into words?

Childhood makes long-lasting impressions—
the people, their deaths, my circumstances
amid changes of place—yes, the geography.
You can see this in poems: beside the sea.

Poets don't really outlive their childhoods.
I was, am, a child, grown into an adult body.
I think most of us are—take Keats, for example,
his room in Florence—it was a boy's room.

I remember walking along a clear stream
as a child in Nova Scotia: it flowed
through town directly under a bridge
near home. I was at the water's edge.

I remember hearing the water ruffling
over the stones, seeing the sun glistening
on the water, glinting off the speckled
backs of tiny trout swimming in pools.

Later, I dreamt about this: silver surprises
seen around every bend in the stream;
the trees, foliage obscured the view until—
my eyes followed the magic of the fish!

I still take these dream journeys today.
You know that. You've read the poems...
It was you who introduced me to snorkeling
in Key West—to fire coral ablaze with color,

to that creeping grey octopus that nestled
on the ocean floor in the bight, its rocky nest,
the round rocks arranged in a circle around
its entrance hole—that clarity under water!

I began noticing everything, noted, catalogued—
I never experienced this before living up north.
My writing took off! (And so North and South.
I was blessed!) Would it have without Key West?

Without the eyebrow house on White Street?
That place? Other places? Bright-lit spaces?
The boats in-and-off shore? The archipelago?
I grew. I grew as places grew real before me.

I grew. I grew as objects, flowers grew more real—
the hibiscus reds, the tiny yellow bougainvillea
flowers surrounded by bracts of purple shades:
amethyst, mauve, violet, lavender, lilac, magenta.

And I grow more real right here—the young woman
gone, grown more solid—into this middle-aged woman
who sits outside inspecting these self-same flowers.
Hibiscus. Bougainvillea. Laelias. Laelias. Laelias.