My friend, after almost 60 years I see his face, hear his voice, feel his presence but his name is just beyond my memory. Together, every school day the playground would become a place of exploration, battles against aliens, desperate escape, inevitable triumph as we soared through space. Playtimes were never long enough for us, 10 year old heroes whose return to earth meant times tables and spelling tests.
I'm not sure if I've ever felt again so in tune with someone else's imagination, we lived our creation and it was as real as the bicycle racks and painted football lines that framed our shared, unique, world.
"I'm not sure if I've ever felt again so in tune with someone else's imagination, we lived our creation and it was as real as the bicycle racks and painted football lines that framed our shared, unique, world."
I kept thinking about the way you describe this, Steve. So beautifully said. 🙏
These words are stunning: “When I think of that tree, of the private world we invented, I realize now, that what we made together was poetry—living, breathing poems filled with reality: images, conversations, birdsong, and the hum of a distant lawnmower. In their quiet power, memories become the anthology of our lives, continuously revised yet somehow preserving the essential truth of who we were and who we've become.”
What an amazing collaboration, Ann! Very, very inspiring!
Thanks so much, Manuela. Collaboration always helps me think differently. Always so grateful to have the opportunity to work alongside another mind trying to make some beauty 💛
Such a beautiful poem, Ann. I was right there with David and you in that tree.
These lines,
“between Earth and sky, between
then and now, when memory curves
back like light through space and time”
erase time and make those childhood memories, present.
I didn’t have a tree to climb but I would sit on the roof of our garden shed by myself, looking down and out at our rather featureless suburban yard. It was my happy place, away from the mundane with time to think and observe. I felt free.
Thanks for reviving this memory. I look forward to the next instalment of your wonderful project.
Glyn, I feel the freedom and expansiveness of your rooftop perch! Six-year-old me would have happily joined you. There’s something powerful about being able to leave the ground when you are usually so small and close to it. That wider point-of-view! I feel that in your music.
What a glorious exchange! Reminds me a bit of the Exquisite Corpse game popular among the surrealists.
Such a visceral exploration of time and memory, neither past nor future, always present. I just read somewhere that “thinking about someone/something is no different than a visitation from that someone/something.” So what if memories, as you describe, are also visitations from our past selves, still writing their stories? Fun to imagine…
Kimberly! You've touched on *exactly* the feeling of a great collaboration. I didn't know the Exquisite Corpse game came from surrealists. My kids used to play it endlessly, passing drawings back and forth with their friends. But yeah, this is exactly what Brian and I did in passing poems back and forth with no expectations or rules. The end result can be something that neither person could make alone.
What a beautiful poem. This exchange makes me want to dig into my memories, to rediscover them again. I used to play dress up, with my mom's and grandmother's old dresses and I created whole worlds.
LeeAnn, I wonder if those feelings and sense-memories hold something precious for you to understand now, all these years later . . .Who knows what could grow from those creative seeds? I really tapped into a few things that feel comforting and empowering now that were not things I could appreciate back then. Would love to read your poem if you decide to share it some day.
Hasse, thanks so much for reading. My childhood home was literally a block from a local ice cream shop called “Dairy Freeze” Our moms used to give us each a quarter and we could run over and get an ice cream cone. I had forgotten all about that until I wrote the poem :-)
My dad had a saying: "ice cream is healthy." Not sure how or why that came into being -- he's usually a pretty careful and reasonable guy -- but we weren't going to argue. :)
It is an odd thing, this Substack café we have all somehow linked up in, a beautiful place filled with poetry and essays and stories, the like of which I never imagined finding outside of a bookshop in a quiet street somewhere unknown. And, there's something else, too, all these likeminded souls we find, they trigger memories with their prose and their words, hundreds of tiny snippets of a past life bounce back into view all sparkling one after the other like stars in a clear indigo sky... and good grief its beautiful!
Ann and Brian, thank you for lighting up a few more - this is heaven!
Susie! That means the world to me coming from one with such a gorgeous lens on Life as you have. The Substack café (yes!)—this Home we all make for each other’s warmest creative impulses—this Indigo Sky we inhabit—it is a place to find one’s voice and share it. A place to give and receive the best of each other. Such a very human thing! Thank you, dear Susie for the encouragement. xo 💛
"Nature is imagination itself." -- what a stunning quote from Blake, and somehow apt considering where my own writing has pulled itself this week.
A gorgeous continuation, Ann. That whole opening is just 🤯 incredible. "Our minds save what matters to us, automatically. Unconsciously." Yes. Yes yes. There's stories and ruminations by Borges that run along these lines.
Wonderful poem and memory, too. You and Brian seems so perfectly paired up for this exchange.
I also really like how Brian played with structure and style with the [brackets] and here your Rocket Tree structure offers something, too. I don't pretend to understand the spacing and choice of spacing, but can only speak from the receipt of it and how lovely it feels to read.
Oh gosh, thank you! My line breaks go all wonky in the phone app. Ridiculous. Oh well. I have an over-fondness for enjambment that’s downright annoying hahahah! Can’t help myself—no rules! And yes, I adore writing with Brian!! 100% enjoyment and zero stress.
I’m so loving this collaboration. I just learned about the poetry-letter writing between Ada Limón and Natalie Diaz (“Envelopes of Air”) and was delighted to find such a back and forth playing out in real time between you and Brian. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
Stephanie, I love and respect both of those poets very much, and now I want to read their poetry-letters. How kind you are to compare us. There is so much vulnerability in poetry. Brian and I have always tried to work with a spirit of earnest listening and playfulness hoping that it might serve as a path to growth in our craft. He is a patient and disciplined poet--more of a true poet I'd say--while I am a free-form, multiple drafts kind of writer. But somehow it works for us. Each collaboration is a fascinating blend of minds--a mystery that I think is worthwhile when done with care. Thanks so much for reading along!
Memory and nostalgia so rich. What a lovely love letter to it you've both written. The imagination of my youth. The role play and dressing up with my younger brother. The neighbourhood events with my neighbours cousin who'd come in the summer. We used organise 'family fun days' I remember them like a theme park, though they really were much simpler, but every child would come to the once a year excitement for all ages. The beach days and caravan holidays in Sligo with the cousins always the highlight. Memory, such a rich journey, where we become 'awashed' in it, to meet our previous selves.
Síodhna, 'awashed' oh yes! Beautifully said. You've just reminded me of the little driveway "carnivals" that we used to create in the summertime. We made games with tiny prizes: pretty rocks or bubble gum. . . We sold "tickets" and invited our parents and kids from down the street. Thank you for reminding me of those warm golden memories. They are still so alive.
This is so lovely! Your beautiful poem reminds me of the games I played with my younger sister growing up. We are just 18 months apart, and we also played games of pretend of one kind or another outside for hours and hours, sometimes in trees. Thank you for this!
I can imagine you two outside together, Jason. My little sister and I spend hours playing in a sandbox we had in the backyard. I remember it as HUGE, but it was probably about 4 feet square :-)
Oh to be a child again. How do we recapture that innocence. Thank you.
Ann, thank you for being here today. That’s the eternal question. Much love to you 💛
My friend, after almost 60 years I see his face, hear his voice, feel his presence but his name is just beyond my memory. Together, every school day the playground would become a place of exploration, battles against aliens, desperate escape, inevitable triumph as we soared through space. Playtimes were never long enough for us, 10 year old heroes whose return to earth meant times tables and spelling tests.
I'm not sure if I've ever felt again so in tune with someone else's imagination, we lived our creation and it was as real as the bicycle racks and painted football lines that framed our shared, unique, world.
What I meant to say was, thank you for triggering that memory, it is very precious
What a lovely and lifelong memory! May it always warm you.
"I'm not sure if I've ever felt again so in tune with someone else's imagination, we lived our creation and it was as real as the bicycle racks and painted football lines that framed our shared, unique, world."
I kept thinking about the way you describe this, Steve. So beautifully said. 🙏
Beautiful, so much sehnsucht in it.
Such a good word, Mark—thank you for this.
These words are stunning: “When I think of that tree, of the private world we invented, I realize now, that what we made together was poetry—living, breathing poems filled with reality: images, conversations, birdsong, and the hum of a distant lawnmower. In their quiet power, memories become the anthology of our lives, continuously revised yet somehow preserving the essential truth of who we were and who we've become.”
What an amazing collaboration, Ann! Very, very inspiring!
Thanks so much, Manuela. Collaboration always helps me think differently. Always so grateful to have the opportunity to work alongside another mind trying to make some beauty 💛
This section struck me as well. This was not the key part that drove part 3, but it did help inform it. Thanks for reading along Manuela!
My favorite line as well!
Beautiful poem Rocket Tree, Ann. Thank you for sharing.
A total joy, Neil—thank you for reading!
Such a beautiful poem, Ann. I was right there with David and you in that tree.
These lines,
“between Earth and sky, between
then and now, when memory curves
back like light through space and time”
erase time and make those childhood memories, present.
I didn’t have a tree to climb but I would sit on the roof of our garden shed by myself, looking down and out at our rather featureless suburban yard. It was my happy place, away from the mundane with time to think and observe. I felt free.
Thanks for reviving this memory. I look forward to the next instalment of your wonderful project.
Glyn, I feel the freedom and expansiveness of your rooftop perch! Six-year-old me would have happily joined you. There’s something powerful about being able to leave the ground when you are usually so small and close to it. That wider point-of-view! I feel that in your music.
I agree. There is something about being above something, having the Birds Eye view…
What a glorious exchange! Reminds me a bit of the Exquisite Corpse game popular among the surrealists.
Such a visceral exploration of time and memory, neither past nor future, always present. I just read somewhere that “thinking about someone/something is no different than a visitation from that someone/something.” So what if memories, as you describe, are also visitations from our past selves, still writing their stories? Fun to imagine…
Kimberly! You've touched on *exactly* the feeling of a great collaboration. I didn't know the Exquisite Corpse game came from surrealists. My kids used to play it endlessly, passing drawings back and forth with their friends. But yeah, this is exactly what Brian and I did in passing poems back and forth with no expectations or rules. The end result can be something that neither person could make alone.
What a beautiful poem. This exchange makes me want to dig into my memories, to rediscover them again. I used to play dress up, with my mom's and grandmother's old dresses and I created whole worlds.
LeeAnn, I wonder if those feelings and sense-memories hold something precious for you to understand now, all these years later . . .Who knows what could grow from those creative seeds? I really tapped into a few things that feel comforting and empowering now that were not things I could appreciate back then. Would love to read your poem if you decide to share it some day.
I'm spending Saturday writing with some poet friends and I'm going to explore that.
I do hope you'll share this!
"time melts like
ice cream from summer's spoon"
Such lovely fun and great thoughts on memories.
I'm gonna look forward to the rest!
Hasse, thanks so much for reading. My childhood home was literally a block from a local ice cream shop called “Dairy Freeze” Our moms used to give us each a quarter and we could run over and get an ice cream cone. I had forgotten all about that until I wrote the poem :-)
Love that! Glad you got to uncover that memory.
My dad had a saying: "ice cream is healthy." Not sure how or why that came into being -- he's usually a pretty careful and reasonable guy -- but we weren't going to argue. :)
Ha! My line is it's good for mental health :)
Oh, how beautiful! I love how your memories become poetry. Your poem is wonderful and yes it reminds me of my own childhood. Thank you so much!
Thank you, Susanne 💛
Thank you for this beautiful poem, Ann! Your unfolding thoughts over memory and time have sent me on a wild chase of my own memories.
"Memory is a poem that writes itself in one / breath" 💛
Music to my ears dear one! 💛
It is an odd thing, this Substack café we have all somehow linked up in, a beautiful place filled with poetry and essays and stories, the like of which I never imagined finding outside of a bookshop in a quiet street somewhere unknown. And, there's something else, too, all these likeminded souls we find, they trigger memories with their prose and their words, hundreds of tiny snippets of a past life bounce back into view all sparkling one after the other like stars in a clear indigo sky... and good grief its beautiful!
Ann and Brian, thank you for lighting up a few more - this is heaven!
Susie! That means the world to me coming from one with such a gorgeous lens on Life as you have. The Substack café (yes!)—this Home we all make for each other’s warmest creative impulses—this Indigo Sky we inhabit—it is a place to find one’s voice and share it. A place to give and receive the best of each other. Such a very human thing! Thank you, dear Susie for the encouragement. xo 💛
Thank you for this beautiful sentiment!
"Nature is imagination itself." -- what a stunning quote from Blake, and somehow apt considering where my own writing has pulled itself this week.
A gorgeous continuation, Ann. That whole opening is just 🤯 incredible. "Our minds save what matters to us, automatically. Unconsciously." Yes. Yes yes. There's stories and ruminations by Borges that run along these lines.
Wonderful poem and memory, too. You and Brian seems so perfectly paired up for this exchange.
I also really like how Brian played with structure and style with the [brackets] and here your Rocket Tree structure offers something, too. I don't pretend to understand the spacing and choice of spacing, but can only speak from the receipt of it and how lovely it feels to read.
Oh gosh, thank you! My line breaks go all wonky in the phone app. Ridiculous. Oh well. I have an over-fondness for enjambment that’s downright annoying hahahah! Can’t help myself—no rules! And yes, I adore writing with Brian!! 100% enjoyment and zero stress.
Enjambment!! Word of the day, possibly week. I didn't know that's the technical term.
I love the no-rules approach. Embrace the enjambment.
Jammin’!!!
I’m so loving this collaboration. I just learned about the poetry-letter writing between Ada Limón and Natalie Diaz (“Envelopes of Air”) and was delighted to find such a back and forth playing out in real time between you and Brian. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
Stephanie, I love and respect both of those poets very much, and now I want to read their poetry-letters. How kind you are to compare us. There is so much vulnerability in poetry. Brian and I have always tried to work with a spirit of earnest listening and playfulness hoping that it might serve as a path to growth in our craft. He is a patient and disciplined poet--more of a true poet I'd say--while I am a free-form, multiple drafts kind of writer. But somehow it works for us. Each collaboration is a fascinating blend of minds--a mystery that I think is worthwhile when done with care. Thanks so much for reading along!
Love the idea of listening and playfulness as a form of developing craft. Along with care and vulnerability - it shows here!
I didn’t know about the exchange with Ada limón. I’ll have to check it out. Another great one is Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser…Braided Creek.
I will look for that one!
Memory and nostalgia so rich. What a lovely love letter to it you've both written. The imagination of my youth. The role play and dressing up with my younger brother. The neighbourhood events with my neighbours cousin who'd come in the summer. We used organise 'family fun days' I remember them like a theme park, though they really were much simpler, but every child would come to the once a year excitement for all ages. The beach days and caravan holidays in Sligo with the cousins always the highlight. Memory, such a rich journey, where we become 'awashed' in it, to meet our previous selves.
“Memory, such a rich journey, where we become 'awashed' in it, to meet our previous selves.” 💛
Síodhna, 'awashed' oh yes! Beautifully said. You've just reminded me of the little driveway "carnivals" that we used to create in the summertime. We made games with tiny prizes: pretty rocks or bubble gum. . . We sold "tickets" and invited our parents and kids from down the street. Thank you for reminding me of those warm golden memories. They are still so alive.
Those golden memories become part of us. What a lovely experiment you've done, will follow it.
This is so lovely! Your beautiful poem reminds me of the games I played with my younger sister growing up. We are just 18 months apart, and we also played games of pretend of one kind or another outside for hours and hours, sometimes in trees. Thank you for this!
I can imagine you two outside together, Jason. My little sister and I spend hours playing in a sandbox we had in the backyard. I remember it as HUGE, but it was probably about 4 feet square :-)