My Poem
Nocturne for a Moving Train
By: Valzhyna Mort
The trees I’ve glimpsed from the window
of a night train were
the saddest trees.
They seemed about to speak,
then—
vanished like soldiers.
The hostesses handed out starched linens for sleep.
Passengers bent over small icons
of sandwiches.
In a tall glass, a spoon mixed sugar into coffee
banging its silver face against the facets.
The window reflected back a figure
struggling with white sheets.
The posts with names of towns promised
a possibility of words
for what flew by.
In lit-up windows people seemed to move
as if performing surgery on tables.
Chestnut parks sighed the sighs of creatures
capable of speech.
Radiation, an etymology of soil
directed into the future, prepared
a thesis on the new origins of old roots,
on secret, disfiguring missions of misspellings,
on the shocking betrayal of apples,
on the uncompromised loyalty of cesium.
My childish voice, my hands, my feet—all my things that live
on the edges of me—
shhh now, the chestnut parks are about to speak.
But now they’ve vanished.
I was extracted from my apartment block,
chained to the earth with iron playgrounds,
where iron swings rose like oil wells,
I was extracted before I could dig a language
out of air
with my childish feet.
I was extracted by beaks—storks, cranes.
See the conductor punching out eyes
of sleeping passengers.
What is it about my face
that turns it into a document,
into a ticket stretched out by a neck?
Why does unfolding this starched bedding
feel like
skinning someone invisible?
Why can’t the spoons, head-down in glasses, stop screaming?
Shhh . . .
The chestnuts are about to speak.
Curricular Competency Reflection
I chose this poem by looking on the Poetry in Voice website and browsing through poems. I had to look for one that was over 25 lines, and I had a couple different options that I found. I chose this poem specifically because I was intrigued on finding the meaning of the poem. It was a bit confusing, but once I tried to analyze it I think I understood most of it. The activities that helped me the most were reciting it daily to get more comfortable with it and reading it over and over to help me memorize. I also practiced reciting it with my brother and using expression as I presented. I think the paragraph helped me present my poem because I figured out the meaning of it. It helped me know which tones and expressions to use at certain parts of it.
Core Competency Reflection
I can contribute to and work with criteria to improve my own work; evidence of that is whenever an assignment I completed is returned back to me, I read the feedback. This helps me as I then use the feedback for my future assignments to help me improve. I seek, develop and weigh options as demonstrated when I had to pick a poem. There were many different options I could pick from, but I decided to go for one that was a bit challenging for me to find the meaning. Some skills I have developed to make my creative activities better are reciting my poem over and over to ingrain it in my memory to help for when I present.