Bringing this project to a close is a mixed bag because beyond the writing (which has honestly been hit and miss; this form didn’t fit my poetic mind very well) Emma and I had a really good summer.  I’m reluctant for it to end.  But I’m also encouraged having discovered some important things about my daughter just by hanging out with her in simple ways and places.

Sentences are structured things, with subject, predicate and punctuation used to help the reader divide and organize ideas.  That’s not so different from we understand our life trying to divide and organize our experiences in order to understand them.  Admittedly, life sometimes feels more like a bunch of random words and run on sentences without a place to catch a breath.  So in many ways this project was about trying to corral life into the orderly structure of sentences.  I think the challenge was to only say one thing, capture one moment.  It compares in life to trying to stay in one moment, when bombarded with so many competing voices and demands for our attention.  Just because I didn’t always succeed doesn’t mean the discipline wasn’t worth the effort.  As I said I learned some valuable things about my daughter in quite simple ways.

Thanks for reading along.  Emma and I wish you a blessed and fruitful fall, the most beautiful of seasons.  Here’s the final sentence:

September pulls us with an ellipsis out of summer sentences…
letting phrases dangle – falling together into a new grammar.

A Whole Bunch of Sentences

I took your picture; you took mine. Then a turtle – Summer!  –  the first day!
(No need to mention Walmart.
Nobody thinks that’s much fun.)
Toys R Us: museum of the mature, fun house of the child at heart.
Dad, curious about what he was missing, followed us like pond ducks.
Canada Day: too hustling-bustling.  We reversed momentum.
No! I won’t go! she said, using her body punctuation – two stomps.
(So you don’t have to wonder
where we are on harder days )
Before it gets hot, let’s find our spot – walk, and hope for dogs on leashes.
Cool happens in sunglasses; brother lets sister bask in his brightness.
Even Big Screen projection can’t imagine the possibilities!
Since the theatre worked, we tried church and slipped out before the preaching.
(All that moss is falling off
Our rocks have started rollin‘)
As Emma stirred the holy waters, plainsong stilled our harried hearts.
We poem-ed in the woods, where leaves fall speechlessly too, random but voiced.
Color coded strung beads hang suspended like falling water – stops you.
Delight flows out through your fingers, rippling the rivers of fancy.
(Jangle-ly bangle-ly bling,
is uniquely Sweets, your thing.)

September pulls us with an ellipsis out of summer sentences…
letting phrases dangle – falling together into a new grammar.

©2017 – Laurel Archer

Summer Sentences is a writing project using Allen Ginsberg’s American Sentences Poetic form — one line of poetry containing 17 syllables, an adaptation of the Haiku.  The project is an expression of our mother-daughter outings through the summer.  It may not show it (now or ever) and we may not be brave enough to display our failed outings, but all this takes some courage for both of us.  The goal is to be out of the house, hanging out together and enjoying some places in and around our home.