Hully Gully

sometimes words from a poem just jump off the page and land in your heart.

yesterday was such a day.

Rita Dove was on NPR and I was so inspired by the interview that the minute I hit the library I headed for the 811's and pulled off a volume of her poems called Grace Notes.

This is the last stanza of a poem called "Hully Gully"

"daughters floated above the ranks of bobby socks.
Theirs was a field to lie down in
while fathers worked swing shift and
wives straightened oval photographs
above exhausted chenille
in bedrooms upstairs everywhere...."

"exhausted chenille"! How I cherish/covet those words. I cannot think of a more succinct, panoramic combination.

I remember back to the chenille spreads of my childhood and there wasn't a one that wasn't exhausted! Perhaps it was a concept of softness that should have stayed in its creator's mind because it is synonymous with a world of tackiness in my young mind!

Beyond that, the bobby socks of the fifties, the soft world of the boomers, the hard work of the parents, the generations before looking out through stern oval lens - Rita Dove, you are masterful!