Steam Reassures Him
My husband is watching me iron.
Steam reassures him. The hiss of starch
The probing slide around each button of his shirt
Speaks to him of Solway Street in Pittsburgh.
As for me, the wicker basket is a reproach.
There is last summer's nightgown,
And several awkward round tablecloths
Which refuse to lie flat.
My house specializes in these challenges.
Bags of mail I did not ask to receive
Choke the floor of my linen closet.
A photograph of me, holding a baby on a beach.
But which beach and, for that matter, which baby?
A Japanese chest whose bottom drawer has irresponsibly locked
itself,
And who can remember where I put the key?
That night, waiting for sleep, I whisper,
I did only trivial things today.
And he asks, Why aren't you painting?
--Elizabeth Pierson Friend 1933-2003
It was the poem, it was the recognition
of so many peers' lives, it was the stunning number at the
end that said this woman was gone. I was born in 1933. I know
this woman. And I never met her.
In 2003, after years of putting family
and social responsibility ahead of my own writing, I had stepped
off a cliff and published a book of that personal writing.
In 2003, after years of doing well the things that women of
our generation were trained and expected to do--which did
not include making art--Elizabeth Friend had died.
The loss feels deep and personal. I want
to read more of her words. But there are no more. Her children
found "Steam Reassures Him" on her computer after
her death, but only fragments of other poems.
I found an online
discussion of the poem and joined it, in the process making
contact with her daughter and her husband, Theodore. He sent
me her photo and obituary,
which says even more of how much was lost when this woman
died with poems unwritten, paintings unpainted.
I carry Elizabeth's one poem in my wallet. I have a sense that I write on this contemporary's behalf, inadequate stand-in that I may be. Theodore Friend has written to me often and has visited us on Whidbey Island; I've enjoyed his
book about Indonesia
and his novel.
And wondrous to learn, Elizabeth
may not have written all the poems we might wish she had done,
but she did paint, lots of paintings. I asked "Dorie"
Friend if he had photos of some of them that I might see,
and lo he had already sent me a copy of her memorial service
program, which was illustrated with sixteen pictures by Elizabeth
Pierson, the name with which she signed these works.
Do have
a look at the glorious pictures I've
managed to scan so far-consider this her on-line gallery.
Your comments
on her words and pictures are welcome.
Site content © 1978-2006 Ann Medlock
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