Poetry Postcard 6

The sixth postcard in  my project went in the mailbox Saturday night. Our neighborhood is late on the mail route -- close to 6 PM -- so the card probably left the post office this morning.

Resolution

River ice floats by,

confection for the eye --

rock candy striped

peppermint, blueberry.

Don’t taste it.

Crunching candy

is hard on teeth.

Don’t let it linger

on the tongue

either. Sugar seeps

into enamel

sure as ice melt

creeps up the gums

of the Hulahula River.

Laura Shovan

The postcard behind this poem is a copyrighted image, but you may view it at the photographer's website. His name is Art Wolfe.

The card arrived in an envelope of postcards from my friend Patricia VanAmburg. Patricia is a poet and retired (sort of) Howard Community College professor. It is a striking image of ice floating on Alaska's Hulahula River.

The river is popular for rafting expeditions. You can read about blogger Eric Goldman's adventure here. It's located in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and is considered a threatened river.

Hulahula River from equinoxexpeditions.com

I began working on this poem right around New Year's Day, which made the idea of a resolution appealing. But every attempt at being "environmental" with the poem led me nowhere.

Instead, my point of entry -- as it often is -- was visual. The layers of color in the river ice ranged from deep blue, to a blueberry lollipop color, to white. To me, the ice seemed confection-like.

The lines "Crunching candy/ is hard on teeth" may have been influenced by my daughter's recent oral surgery. A week later and she still can't chew properly. (She did go back to school, at last, today.)

I was surprised when the poem circled back to an environmental theme, after all. The last several lines snuck up on me and earned the poem its title, "Resolution."

http://adventure-travel.findthebest.com/l/1018/Alaska-Rafting-the-Hulahula-River

Those of you following the project: I wrote the eleventh poem today, which means I have completed a quarter of the postcards!

So far, I have learned about the Merrimack & the Monitor, 50s era starlet Vera Ellen, and the Hulahula River and become reaquainted with Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. 

I've been photographing the front of each card before mailing it, but realized I should record the info on the back also. I began doing that this morning, with postcard #9. Should have thought of it sooner.

Last night, I read two of the cards, "Thick Skinned" and one I haven't posted yet, at Minas Gallery. People seem to like the poems. Several in the audience gave me an address to receive a card. One person was in town for the holidays and asked if I'd be willing to send her postcard to Shanghai!

At the end of the project, I'll post a list of states and countries where the postcards were sent. So far, two countries outside the U.S. I haven't made a count of the states, but I'm guessing it's at least half a dozen.