52 Poems: Week 45 Mary Szybist

So the National Book Foundation awarded their National Book Award prizes this week and Mary Szybist won for her poetry collection Incarnadine. She lives in Portland now and I quite liked this poem. Plus, she taught me a new word:

in·car·na·dine

inˈkärnəˌdīn,-ˌdēn/

literary

noun

noun: incarnadine

1. 1.

   a bright crimson or pinkish-red color.

adjective

adjective: incarnadine

1. 1.

   of a crimson or pinkish-red color.

verb

verb: incarnadine; 3rd person present: incarnadines; past tense: incarnadined; past participle: incarnadined; gerund or present participle: incarnadining

1. 1.

   color (something) a bright crimson or pinkish-red.

    

    

   Happy Ideas
   By Mary Szybist

   I had the happy idea to fasten a bicycle wheel

   to a kitchen stool and watch it turn.                  

   —duchamp

   I had the happy idea to suspend some blue globes in the air

   
   

   and watch them pop.

   
   

   I had the happy idea to put my little copper horse on the shelf so we could stare at each other

   all evening.

   
   

   I had the happy idea to create a void in myself.

   
   

   Then to call it natural.

   
   

   Then to call it supernatural.

   
   

   I had the happy idea to wrap a blue scarf around my head and spin.

   
   

   I had the happy idea that somewhere a child was being born who was nothing like Helen or

   Jesus except in the sense of changing everything.

   
   

   I had the happy idea that someday I would find both pleasure and punishment, that I would

   know them and feel them,

   
   

   and that, until I did, it would be almost as good to pretend.

   
   

   I had the happy idea to call myself happy.

   
   

   I had the happy idea that the dog digging a hole in the yard in the twilight had his nose deep in

   mold-life.

   
   

   I had the happy idea that what I do not understand is more real than what I do,

   
   

   and then the happier idea to buckle myself

   
   

   into two blue velvet shoes.

   
   

   I had the happy idea to polish the reflecting glass and say

   
   

   hello to my own blue soul. Hello, blue soul. Hello.

   
   

   It was my happiest idea.