And so I Sit
And so I sit
Not in silence,
No, not in silence.
In summer the locusts buzz from the trees and the ground and ripple the air like tides, like stones skipping over the pond, like that feeling I sometimes get when the atoms of my body
Shake so violently and anticipate everything there is to anticipate all at once.
And so I sit
Outside to eat, to ignore the mess that
Is my head at my feet, that is me curled and fetal, that is me unadulterated with
the sweet of watermelon and innocence dripping from lips that kiss the ground— the ground that buzzes and buzzes and reminds me that—
Everything that is whole is in pieces
That vibrate and shake as I do
And so I sit
In pieces and collect all that is me and
more than me. To take it and steal it and incorporate it until I am
Solid like everything that ripples, like the pondwater stones skip across.
And so I sit
And remind myself on this summer day,
When I am helpless to do anything but anticipate everything there is to anticipate,
When I am buzzing and fracturing and falling apart,
That the world shakes as I do
And in our anticipation, our silence,
We ripple together.
Posted Jun 25, 2022, 1:28 PM UTC
I wonder what the refrain is adding? To me it serves as a barrier to the piece, hard disagree with the other commenter. I get that it's supposed to center the reader, but to me it's just not interesting enough to do that well. Using it once would be more powerful than beating your reader with it. And it's the title! Just a lot of "sitting" here.
Here's a potential version with the refrain more streamlined, de-frained, if you will:
In summer the locusts buzz from the trees and the ground and ripple the air like tides, like stones (now that's an entrance!)
skipping over the pond, like that feeling I sometimes get when the atoms of my body
Shake so violently and anticipate everything there is to anticipate all at once.
Outside, I ignore the mess that
Is my head at my feet, that is me curled and fetal, that is me unadulterated with
the sweet of watermelon and innocence dripping from lips that kiss the ground— the ground that
buzzes and buzzes and reminds me that—
Everything that is whole is in pieces
That vibrate and shake as I do
And so I sit (here it gains pronouncement, a kind of voltaic power with its shortened line and reflection to the title)
In pieces and collect all that is me and more than me. To take it and steal it and incorporate it until I am
Solid like everything that ripples, like the pondwater stones skip across.
When I am helpless to do anything but anticipate everything there is to anticipate,
When I am buzzing and fracturing and falling apart,
The world shakes as I do
And in our anticipation, our silence,
We ripple together.
Thanks for the in depth break down— reading it out like that really does make a huge difference. Appreciate your feedback!
I agree with this, that this version of the poem would be more hard hitting. However! I feel like these get at two different emotions. The repeated “and so I sit” gets at that feeling of helplessness almost. I have often had thoughts like these so it mirrors that type of feeling. I think it depends on if the author wants the repeated, almost intrusive thought to be the main feeling in the poem.
I feel like leaving it as the title and using it at an important moment is good enough. Else it may feel repetitive and less crafted (well, depending on the reader, I suppose).