“Flotation—The Weightlessness of Words” by Viki NA
We both worshipped words.
The onomatopoeia, the endless parade of adjectives, the loveliness
Of a rhymed couplet.
We wrote poetry together, like two riders on a tandem bicycle, with
Spokes for syllables, haiku for handlebars.
Oftentimes in the evening, he would read to me. In my room, in his room,
He’d open the pages of a book and begin. Walt Whitman, Robert Frost.
Edna St. Vincent Millay. The letters, the words, rose skyward, in slow
Motion. A lyric lullaby of rhymes, of free verse. The Shakespearean sonnets.
“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought, I summon up remembrance
Of things past.”
When he read to me, I became light, as bright as the late afternoon fog
Wafting over hilltops near the Golden Gate Bridge.
He sat near me, like a loving father, reading to his little girl.
The dulcet tones, the sonorous sentences, the phrases sublime.
Elevation. Salvation.
Flotation.
The lilt
The tilt
The books are closed now,
But sometimes, in the hush before sleep,
I still hear the rise and fall, the cadence
His voice shaping silence
Into something that loved me
The lilt
The tilt
And then
The lift
Of everything unspoken
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Viki NA Artist Statement:
Since I was about 11, I have described myself as a writer. I have loved writing plays, essays, short fiction and criticism. Poetry, however, is how I relate to the world, particularly recently, when I found my true poetic voice.
Poetry anchors and sustains me as I navigate the difficult times we are living in. I am a black woman and a senior. At my age, I struggle with the inevitability of mortality and the loss of friends, colleagues, and allies.
Without my writing, I don’t know how I would come to terms the finality of life.
Outside of the financial wherewithal that everyday life requires, my writing means everything else. It gives me strength and a small measure of confidence that perhaps my name will be mentioned in the years ahead, when I will have lost the ability to continue expressing myself in writing.
I’m grateful that others enjoy my poetry and that they are inspired by it. I love it that people define me and introduce me to others as a poet. I would rather be a poet than any other person.
Poetry means so much to me. It’s life, distilled.
