Joyful Musings: Celebrating Poetry Month With Some Fine Memories And 'The Race'

Exeter NH

10 April, 2022

10:37 AM

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By Susan Dromey Heeter, Joyful Musings, InDepth NH DOVER, NH — A few decades ago, my friend, Gina and I took a bus from the Netherlands to Germany in order to learn to ski. As the opportunity was very last minute, very cheap, we packed our bags and, as we were young, single and fancy free, we giggled with excitement as we boarded. We claimed our seats, I took out my M&Ms and we settled in for a ride on the autobahn toward Berchtesgaden. But, as happens, Gina could not read or travel comfortably without getting car sick. So, as I'd grabbed my Norton Anthology of Poetry for the trip, I ate M&M's and I read poetry out loud to pass the hours. One poem stands out, one poem stayed with both of us: The Race by Sharon Olds. And as it is National Poetry Month, I'm going to share that poem with you, Joyful Musers, a poem that would later have more meaning as I drove Gina to the airport in Brussels as she learned her wonderful Dad had suffered a heart attack. Susan Dromey Heeter, Joyful Musings Enjoy today's poem. I muse joyfully you'll read poetry out loud to comfort a friend, to make a trip pass in beauty, to celebrate National Poetry Month. Stay well, Joyful Musers and may you always find comfort in poetry. Susan Dromey Heeter is a writer from Dover who recently let her hair go au natural white. Writing has been her passion since her English majoring days at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Dromey Heeter has lived in The Netherlands, Alaska and currently basks in all things New England, including the frigid winters. An avid swimmer, Dromey Heeter's great passion is to bring back body surfing as most children have no idea how to ride waves without ridiculous boogie boards. The Race by Sharon Olds When I got to the airport I rushed up to the desk, bought a ticket, ten minutes later they told me the flight was cancelled, the doctors had said my father would not live through the night and the flight was cancelled. A young man with a dark brown moustache told me another airline had a nonstop leaving in seven minutes. See that elevator over there, well go down to the first floor, make a right, you'll see a yellow bus, get off at the second Pan Am terminal, I ran, I who have no sense of direction raced exactly where he'd told me, a fish slipping upstream deftly against the flow of the river. I jumped off that bus with those bags I had thrown everything into in five minutes, and ran, the bags wagged me from side to side as if to prove I was under the claims of the material, I ran up to a man with a flower on his breast, I who always go to the end of the line, I said Help me. He looked at my ticket, he said Make a left and then a right, go up the moving stairs and then run. I lumbered up the moving stairs, at the top I saw the corridor, and then I took a deep breath, I said goodbye to my body, goodbye to comfort, I used my legs and heart as if I would gladly use them up for this, to touch him again in this life. I ran, and the bags banged against me, wheeled and coursed in skewed orbits, I have seen pictures of women running, their belongings tied in scarves grasped in their fists, I blessed my long legs he gave me, my strong heart I abandoned to its own purpose, I ran to Gate 17 and they were just lifting the thick white lozenge of the door to fit it into the socket of the plane. Like the one who is not too rich, I turned sideways and slipped through the needle's eye, and then I walked down the aisle toward my father. The jet was full, and people's hair was shining, they were smiling, the interior of the plane was filled with a mist of gold endorphin light, I wept as people weep when they enter heaven, in massive relief. We lifted up gently from one tip of the continent and did not stop until we set down lightly on the other edge, I walked into his room and watched his chest rise slowly and sink again, all night I watched him breathe. This story was originally published by InDepth NH.