Sinister
What the left hand does
when the right hand doesn’t
know what it’s doing
is an attempt to re-pattern
the brain, to slow it down,
as the pencil spider-walks
its wandering way over the page
like my father’s did when,
stroke-stricken in the right hand,
he transferred his pencil to the left
and sought to-re-establish control
over tiny, manageable things,
and yes, he often cut himself
shaving, but he didn’t like beards
so he never gave in and shaved
every day, died fighting,
and did not go gentle,
and neither will I.
Comment: This is a very raw poem, in more senses than one. I fell over on Tuesday, on the back porch. One of the porch nails, forced up by the winter ice, caught in my open-toed sandal and over I went. My head had hit the deck before I even knew I was falling. It wasn’t as bad as the tumble I had when chasing the black bear and trying to photograph it, but this fall left me quite stunned. You can read about the fall HERE. The actual bruising, not the fictional ones, can be found in #3 of that sequence. I wrote the above poem, on Thursday evening, with my left hand, while my right hand was being iced. Funny how we think of one thing while doing another: I had visions of my father, stroke-stricken as I say, trying to write with his left hand. He fought so hard to do just the smallest things. Oh yes, I have a nice bump on my head, too, and as I told the chiropractor when I visited her later that Tuesday afternoon: “I think I have already had my back adjusted once today.” The other thought that comes to me: how slow we are to heal, once we pass a certain age, or, as my good friend Jan the Stoneist says, “an uncertain age.” With that latest fall, I have indeed entered into The Age of Uncertainty.
Oh no! Roger I hope you are recovering. I’m so sorry to hear about your fall. It’s good that you can write with both hands, however! Please heal up quick and watch out for those nails!
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Pride cometh before … I was walking proudly without my stick and it was beautiful on the back porch … then I caught my sandal on … well, I thought it was a nail, but it might have been one of those splinters that break up against the grain of the wood sometimes … it wasn’t as bad as the last fall I had, and I am fine now … though a little bit stirred (not shaken) last week …
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Well I’m glad to hear that you’re all right. We’ve had the same problem with the deck boards splintering in harsh winter weather – I have to be careful in my bare feet. Have the snow piles disappeared yet?
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The garden is now clear of snow. We have some deep woods snow to come and it hasn’t yet been warm enough to melt the HUGE piles of snow in some places. The river has crested but we have the deep woods snow to come, plus another six inches forecast (Northern NB), and rain for us … the river is pretty impressive right now …
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Wow! I hope you’re not at risk of being flooded… 😦
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Not at all … we are over the hill, just below the ridge, on the opposite side of the hill from the river. No problem there.
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I’ve played with left hand writing in the past. I’ll have to try it again sometime. It not only slows you down but is also supposed to change the side of the brain you’re thinking from (if it’s not your writing hand)…
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Salvador Dali did exactly that ..
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That’s impressive
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I think I will try some more left-handed writing, just to see if it changes the thought patterns … I have been thinking about doing so since your last post … many thanks …
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Enjoy 🙂 perhaps you’ll share more of your left hand creations (hope so)
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Not even hitting your head stopped you from writing! Take care 🙂
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It was a left-handed poem: I hurt my right hand too and couldn’t write with it. Hence the poem!
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“So he never gave in…”
I love that! That is a memory to hold on to, in either hand.
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I fell over on Tuesday, on the back porch. One of those nails forced up by the winter ice caught in my sandal and over I went. I wrote the poem with my left hand while my right hand was being iced. Funny how we think of one thing while doing another. I have a nice bump on my head, too.
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Ouch! That’s not fun. It lead to a great piece of writing…but ouch!
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I had a date with the chiropractor that same afternoon. I nearly cancelled on the grounds that “I had already had my back adjusted”! My personality, too.
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Lol…Heal quickly, Roger!
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