Poetry Wednesday - You Ask Me …

A poem that I now realise is about pathological demand avoidance

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Good day Red Cabbage Heads,

I have written before about how part of my English Lit uni course was a rather lovely Writing, Stories and Myths module and I rather enjoyed it. However we also did poem writing as part of our main course too. One day the eldest of our professors read a descriptive piece about a stream and we were tasked with going away and writing it into a poem and to use the refrain ‘Run softly, Avon stream.’ I was annoyed at this task. It seemed all we ever did was take another’s work and redo it differently.

I don’t remember if we were given loads of background on the piece, I know we got very little input and that I wrote poems for a good few of the class as they struggled. And I was writing a piece on here about PDA (pathological demand avoidance, also now known as persistent drive for autonomy) - not yet finished - when it struck me. Even though I did what the professor asked for, I wrote another telling him of my displeasure. I wasn’t writing about the stream anymore, I was writing about PDA. It only took me 36 years to realise!

I submitted both poems to my tutor, expecting to be reprimanded. Instead, a worse punishment followed, I was asked to read it aloud for the whole class to hear! I think they actually were pleased someone had gone beyond the task. But reading out loud *shudders*. Reading it back now, I realise I actually took comprehensive notes at the time, so that showed I actually paid attention in class. Though there was that one time I was leaning my chair on the wall behind and fell asleep and the chair slipped. Oops. I ended up damaging the tendons behind both my knees on the edge of the chair and bashed my head on the metal of the old radiator I was leaning the chair on. The tutors didn’t realise it was because I’d dropped off briefly and lost my tenacious hold on gravity.

Anyhoo, poem.

Photo by Daniel Seßler on Unsplash

You Ask Me . . .  

You ask me to write you a poem
About a spring
High in the hills.
You ask me to imagine the colour
The newly rising sun
Sprinkles on the free-running water
And you ask me to chant a line
I don’t like and wouldn’t use
“Run softly, Avon stream.”

You ask me to write how 
The spring trickles over
Soft, rounded pebbles
And harder, sharper stones
Babbling to itself
“Run softly, Avon stream.”
 
You ask me to chart its progress
Down into a valley I’ve never visited
And through a village I’ve never seen.
You give me all the details of
Wagtails paddling and 
Kingfishers soaring
Flashing electric blue. 
“Run softly, Avon stream.”

You ask me to write
Of a stream joining others
To write of a union and
The making of a river.
You ask me to envisage 
It’s journey through a town
And finally to the sea and 
A softly setting sun
“Run softly, Avon stream.”

These images are yours not mine
I have no concept of them
No need, no inspiration, nor any motivation
To write of what I do not know
Or to repeat a line
“Run softly, Avon stream.”
But still you ask me.

That’s all for this week, ta-ra Tx

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