Chairs Invite Conversation

FROM WHERE I SIT     CHAIRS INVITE CONVERSATION   JULY 7, 2014   P.D.SPILSETH

Chairs register with me.  My weekly column is titled “From Where I Sit”.  My first logo accompaning the column had a woman sitting in an Adirondack chair on the beach...that was supposed to be me, reading and writing.  Often I’ve written about the two comfy, red leather chairs sitting by our fireplace, where my family usually reads and talks together by the fire.  My writing friends have their own special chairs picked out to sit and discuss when we meet monthly.  

I expect soft comfort to encase my bottom when I sit in a chair.  And I need a back to rest against.  It’s an added bonus to have a footstool, a hassock, for my legs to be elevated.  Adirondack chairs fill my need for the perfect summer seating on the deck, around the firepit, on the lawn or down by the beach.  They’re perfect to sit and dream, talk with a friend, mediatate.  They help create a relaxing mood for folks and invite conversation.

Poet Laurete Billy Collins writes poetry about chairs.  Like me, he must have an affection for simple, comfortable chairs.  This week I’ve been reading Collins’ collection of contemporary poetry entitles AIMLESS LOVE.  In simple words and plain speech,  Collins leads readers from one line rolling into the next, giving his readers imaginative suprises and pleasure.   His poems are playful and delightful, sometimes serious.  He writes in free verse...there’s not a rhyming couplet in this collection of easy to read poetry.  His style reminds me of another poet laurete, Ted Kooser, from the Great Plains who writes poems about valentines, winter morning walks and life in rural and small town America.  His simple style using plain words is a delight to read. 

Collins poem of chairs sitting on a porch is a favorite of mine.  It reminds me of today’s lack of communication between people, used to texting in abbreviative phrases rather than conversing face to face.  The poem has me remembering the two white Adirondack chairs on our deck with a table between to hold coffee, books and treats.

“The Chairs That No One Sits In

You see them on porches and on lawns 

down by the lakeside,

usually arranged in pairs implying a couple.

who might sit there and look out

at the water or the big shade trees.

The trouble is you never see anyone

sitting in these forlorn chairs

though at one time it must have seemed 

a good place to stop and do nothing for a while.

Sometimes there is a litle table

between the chairs where no one

is resting a glass or placing a book facedown.

It may not be any of my business,

but let us suppose one day

that everyone who placed those vacant chairs

on a veranda or a dock sat down in them

if only for the sake of remembering

what it was they thought deserved

to be viewed from the two chairs,

side by side with a table in between.

The clouds are high and massive on that day.

The woman looks up from her book.

The man takes a sip of his drink.

Then there is only the sound of their looking.

the lapping of lake water, and a call of one bird

then another, cries of joy or warning--

it passes the time to wonder which.”

Adirondack chairs sit in pairs on our deck overlooking the lake.  Most evenings in the spring, summer, and fall I like to relax in these chairs and talk over the day with my husband or another friend.  Sometimes in the snowy winter, I leave these chairs on our screened porch so I can sit in them, bundled up in down coat and hat, with coffee and my journal.  I enjoy the falling snow, cross country skiers on the lake and the ever changing ice patterns frozen on the water.  

The chairs have a way about them: they seem to elicit conversation, shared secrets and dreams.  The chairs invite conversation.  They invite friends to communicate and enjoy life together.  687 words