First, a short poem for your day:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published  Dear Gravity  May I call you Grave? An old tree falls  after long weakening, after years of unseen hollowing,  and it keeps falling, rotted core turning to damp dust,  becoming earth. The body its own trench.  At the doctor’s office, the nurse says  I’ve grown shorter. Only natural. I stare hard  but can’t wipe the pleasant smile off her face.  I am sinking not quite like a ship or a deflating balloon,  but like the house’s foundation. I am the house  and the clay it is built on and eventually  the unrecognizable ruin. My mother’s hips  are out of plumb; she lists like a sailboat  about to slice sideways into waves and then under.  My father’s head is even with my own, so he’s winning  the shrinking race. Imagine us becoming not just shorter  but thinner, not lying down for a last time  but disappearing altogether, like a popsicle  that has melted into a stain on someone’s smile.    Rebecca Aronson    Anchor    Winner of the Eric Hoffer Award for Excellence in Independent Publishing    Winner of the Annual Book Prize from the Philosophical Society of Texas    Orison Books, 2022

This poem is the first of ten in Anchor titled “Dear Gravity.” As a poet with aspirations, I confess I experienced increasing envy as I read each missive Aronson penned to gravity. I understand that wordplay can be groan-inducing, but I’ll gamble. This series of ten anchors the collection, each succeeding letter offering the poet—and her readers—further opportunity to ponder the inextricable link between gravity and the ravages of aging, the burden of grief as those we love succumb to the inevitable.

Thanks for reading Narrative Surprise! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

In the opening lines of this first letter to gravity, a tree falls to the weakening that goes with age. Trees fall—nothing out of the ordinary about that. But Aronson pays extraordinary attention: “rotted core turning to damp dust, / becoming earth.” Glance back to the capital on Grave. It’s an adjective in the opening line, but by the poem’s fourth line—“The body its own trench.”—we have arrived at a cemetery grave.

The word body having entered the poem, Aronson apposes three humans and their experience of gravity. She herself has “grown shorter”—an effect of gravity common to humans as we navigate middle age. Here we witness Aronson’s characteristic humor. After a nurse comments that her shortening stature is only natural: “I stare hard / but can’t wipe the pleasant smile off her face.” And then the poet’s blunt—also characteristic—honesty. “I am sinking,” she says, “like the house’s foundation. I am the house / and the clay it is built on and eventually / the unrecognizable ruin.”

And here, a masterful juxtaposition. The word ruin, a period, and then, continuing the same line: “My mother’s hips,” followed by the image of a sailboat going under, succumbing to gravity.

In the following line, Aronson returns to gravity’s effect on a body’s vertical dimension: “My father’s head is even with my own, so he’s winning / the shrinking race.” Aging, approaching death, we become “not just shorter / but thinner” and finally “lying down for a last time.” But there’s more to this poet’s imagination here. What if, instead of the final lie-down, humans could simply disappear, “like a popsicle / that has melted into a stain on someone’s smile”?

From the opening line of this first poem, I knew I was in good hands. When I got to the surprise of myself becoming “a stain on someone’s smile,” I couldn’t wait for more. I kept turning pages, and when I got to the end, I waited until the next morning and then re-read all the poems I’d starred on the table of contents. I want to keep Anchor on a near shelf in my study—so I can visit these poems again.

About the Author

Rebecca Aronson is also the author of Ghost Child of the Atalanta Bloom, winner of the 2016 Orison Books poetry prize and finalist for the 2017 Arizona/New Mexico book awards and winner of the 2019 Margaret Randall Book Award from the Albuquerque Museum Foundation, and Creature, Creature, winner of the Main-Traveled Roads Poetry Prize, 2007. She has been a recipient of a Prairie Schooner Strousse Award, the Loft’s Speakeasy Poetry Prize, and a 2018 Tennessee Williams Scholarship to Sewanee. Aronson is co-founder and host of Bad Mouth, a series of words and music.

Visit Aronson’s website here ⇒

Anchor is available here ⇒

An Occasional PSA from David Meischen

Please purchase books from your local independent bookstore and/or from independent presses. Avoid the Big A, which is in the business of gouging authors, independent bookstores, and small presses.

Thanks for reading Narrative Surprise! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.