Welcome friends...thanks for coming by. We're seeking beauty in all of creation... in our faith and our families; our art and our music; our crafts and kitchens, and even in our own backyard. We'll share a poem or a recipe, a picture or a memory; maybe a dream of how we wish our life could be. And though we acknowledge that the world can be harsh, we're keeping it pleasant in our little corner; endeavoring to keep the words from the Book of all Books: ...Whatsoever things are lovely; think on these things.

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Photo: Bee and thistle: Taken high in the Cascade Mountains where there is a bee buzzing on every thistle. by Debora Rorvig

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Shiftless

I love writers who take ordinary things and make homely vignettes with words. That's what
Raymond Carver did in his poems. His poems remind me so much of my own Raymond...Raymond Miller, my dad.  He and I used to drive along River Road in Ferndale; him with a beer between his knees, and me sipping on a bottle of Orange Crush. We'd stop now and then to see if guys with names like 'Lucky', or 'Shorty', had caught anything out of the river. Then we'd drive out to the reservation and sit with one of his Native friends on the porch. His friend whittled. Few words; only the sound of a knife scraping wood and the cap popping off another beer, and an Orange Crush for me. 

Dad would've liked this poem.



 Shiftless                      by Raymond Carver

The people who were better than us were comfortable.
They lived in painted houses with flush toilets.
Drove cars whose year and make were recognizable.
The ones worse off were sorry and didn't work.
Their strange cars sat on blocks in dusty yards.
The years go by and everything and everyone gets replaced.
But this much is still true-I never liked work.
My goal was always to be shiftless.
I saw the merit in that.
I liked the idea of sitting in a chair in front of your house
for hours,
doing nothing but wearing a hat and drinking cola.
What's wrong with that?
Drawing on a cigarette from time to time.
Spitting.
Making things out of wood with a knife.
Where's the harm there?
Now and then calling the dogs to hunt rabbits.
Try it sometime. Once in a while hailing a fat, blond kid like me and saying, "Don't I know you?" Not, "What are you going to be when you grow up?"

5 comments:

Bookie said...

I do not know the poet Raymond Carver. Thank you for the introduction! Loved the poem and the prose you wrote on your blog today!

BECKY said...

Ditto what Bookie said! :)

Linda O'Connell said...

what a trip down memory lane. Your post has inspired a poem.

Susan said...

Hi Debora...

Sounds like you have some nice memories of you and your Dad spending time together.

Thanks for stopping by. Susan

Susan Flett Swiderski said...

I like the poem, too. It could have been written by one of the characters in my book, who "tried work once, but didn't much care for it."

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