In “Anticipation: One View,” Candice Stover paints a picture in great detail of what/who she might like to be in the future.
She paints it will all the senses—raspberries, colors, sounds (voice & song) and textures (wisps). What makes this poem work is what she never brings up … who she is now. All we know is what she wants to be. So there is this nice tension between what is and what she wants.
Write about something you long for … describe it in deep detail.
Anticipation: One View
– Candice Stover
Oh! to be that woman with wisps of grey hair
lightly blowing from a twist gathered at your
nape, as you pedal your trusty Schwinn along
a sun-struck Maine road in July, only the morning
newspaper and a basket of wild raspberries riding
in a cardboard box mounted to your handlebars.
To be that woman, bare-headed, in a red-and-white
striped shirt, waving, exclaiming as you pass,
“What a beautiful day!” To be that woman, leaving
a wake of song in your path, choosing Beethoven’s
Ode to Joy. To know the words by heart, singing
them aloud on a bicycle. To be that woman. Oh!