Massachusetts poet J. Lorraine Brown has used an
unusual image in “Tintype on the Pond, 1925.” This poem, like
many others, offers us a unique experience, presented as a gift, for us to
respond to as we will. We need not ferret out a hidden message. How many of
us will recall this little scene the next time we see ice skates or a
Sunday-dinner roast?
Tintype on the Pond, 1925
Believe it or not, the old woman said, and I tried to picture it: a girl, the polished white ribs of a roast tied to her boots with twine, the twine coated with candle wax so she could glide uninterrupted across the ice —
my mother, skating on bones.
Reprinted from Eclipse by permission of the author. Poem copyright © 2004 by
J. Lorraine Brown. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry
Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the
University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited
poetry.
Ted Kooser is the U.S. Poet Laureate. For more information, go to www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.
This article appears in Dec 8-14, 2005.
