The Summer I Did a Whole Book of Crossword Puzzles
I still remember the man on Martha’s Vineyard
doing a crossword puzzle on his cottage porch
I admired his peaceful concentration
and thought I’d like to do that too
It’s not like wanting a cold beer
after you see someone drinking one
You have to work and it takes hours to finish
It takes years to find the right book
one with puzzles that are hard enough
but not unsolvable
The summer I did crossword puzzles
it was hot and didn’t rain
but I didn’t want to water the garden
I didn’t want to be in the kitchen
but still liked to eat
We played hooky from school when we were kids
I went to the beach with a can of soup
and started a driftwood fire to heat it
But it didn’t work
I couldn’t get the can open
It wasn’t fun like I was expecting
Doing crossword puzzles doesn’t feed me
in anything but a metaphorical sense
and no one thanks me when I finish
No one notices the long search
I write over the wrong answers
and sometimes want to give up
but puzzles, like writing poetry, intrigues me
and I can do them lying down
I did a lot of puzzles at the pool that summer
in a lounge chair while drying off
I’m weightless in water
I know the words without looking
at the answers in the back of the book
What’s 5 letters that starts with a V
and means that your immune system
has been attacked?
Some puzzles will make you tired
and others have no clues
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
is too long to fit on most pages
and “Long Hauler” is just another
new catch-all phrase
to fill an empty space
__________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United
July 4th, 2021 2:50 am
I have loved crossword puzzles for years and usually do the daily newspaper ones. This way I can put them down and not be addicted by the purchase of books with hundredsof puzzles inside in them.
July 4th, 2021 2:57 am
I love the reminiscences, giving insight into a lifestyle, and then the turning serious at the end, with an almost invisible yet devastating shift.
I have been doing crosswords since childhood too, and in recent years have preferred the clueless.
With any puzzle, it’s good to find those that are ‘hard enough but not unsolvable’. (I find that for me this applies particularly to games of Patience.)
July 4th, 2021 2:58 am
PS Have you discovered erasable biros yet? A huge help for us crossworders!
July 4th, 2021 10:19 am
Having something that gives our mind a workout when our bodies are just not up to the same can be a solace for me too. But mysteries with no easy answers are much better to encounter in the pages of a crossword book than in with medical issues. Here’s hoping for better answers with good solutions for everyone.
July 4th, 2021 10:23 am
For me is stitched blackout poetry. I can get lost in the word search, in thinking how else a word might be used so that it would fit the poem… The activity is good for my mind when I’m trying to quiet the screams of chronic pain, good for steadying my hands when neuropathy insists in shaking me to the core.
I really like this one, Colleen, so much…
July 4th, 2021 10:41 am
Love this poem and crossword puzzles, though with age they do get harder. Or, it may be I’m not keeping up with the times.
July 5th, 2021 2:05 am
i like how the poem starts with the narrator giving the background on doing crossword puzzles, and the ending on perhaps, why. Solving the puzzles can perhaps get the mind off the pain the physical body is suffering.
July 5th, 2021 11:39 am
Colleen, I love this poem of “thinking out loud”, the mood, the insight into the reason for the poem. Just lovely!
July 6th, 2021 12:06 pm
And here I sit. A half-finished NY Times crossword tossed aside, huge sighs of frustration, why oh why do I try?
July 6th, 2021 12:09 pm
I got one at a dollar store that is the first time I hit on what that is geared to success with some work for me. I’ve had others from the dollar store that weren’t as good. I don’t even try the NYT!