Primary Source
By Sara Burnett
It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!
A teacher of mine once said every writer has only four or five subjects. There’s happiness in repetition if you don’t hear the seconds ticking. What’s worse? Dedicating yourself to failure or denying it again and again? Pacher’s pupil, a Renaissance carver, perfected the pine folds of Saint Margaret’s robes using a large axe, then several smaller ones, then sanded and painted her in fine detail. Did he ever think where did the time go? She stands at the back of a church in Tyrol, a dragon writhing under her feet. What do you live for? The quiet before sunrise or the moments after. The baby coos in her pram. I’ve always wanted to use the word pram at least once in a poem. Now that I’m a mother, I’ve a better understanding of terror and the miraculous. Who will she be when she’s grown? Do I have time to shower? If, as a famous writer decreed, it takes 10,000 hours to achieve mastery, I’ve perfected rocking my hips from side-to-side, changing a diaper in dim dawn light. My baby practices sitting up even in her sleep— her head bobs like a buoy, her eyelids shudder. My teacher said sometimes your first line is your last line. What’s more? The moment she walks or the moment she falls down. Looking again at the photo, the dragon lies curled at Margaret’s feet. I’m holding an image of an image someone else carved in my hands. She loves it when I sprinkle my fingers down on her like rain. I’m holding the rain in my hands and in my hands, the rain holds her.
Sara Burnett is the author of Seed Celestial (2022), winner of the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize. She has been published in Barrow Street, Copper Nickel, PANK, RHINO, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the University of Maryland, and a MA in English Literature from the University of Vermont, and is the recipient of scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. In addition to writing poetry and essays, she also writes picture books. She lives in Maryland with her family. See sararburnett.com.
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