The Eulogy
She liked tunnels but not bridges
rooms rather than open floor plans
documentaries more than biopics
and gingerbread more than brownies
She teared-up when she saw
Andrew Wyeth’s art in a D.C. museum
and listened to every song
that Mark Knopfler ever recorded
She said, “I always feel more prepared
when I have a toy in my pocketbook”
and “Whenever I don’t know what it is I’m doing
and it borders on wasting my time, I call it research”
She liked to people watch and thrift shop
She marched for peace and cherished children
She said, “As far as I can determine, I’m a Jungian Taoist
who might have been a Transcendentalist
if I lived in the time of Emerson and Thoreau”
She wasn’t a leader or a follower
but a party of one, she said
“I’m a fiscally conservative independent
who votes Democrat because they represent my views
on civil rights, women’s rights, labor rights
and the environment better than their counterpart”
Her Irish ear for words took root in childhood
with nursery rhymes, fairytales and jump rope songs
and she knew she was meant to be a poet
after hearing Leonard Cohen sing Suzanne
The sun was her psychedelic of choice
The ocean her love language
Her childhood heroes were Annie Oakley and Peter Pan
A camera was the first thing she bought
after getting paid for her first job at a daycare
As she got older she said, “I’m writing poetry
that lets the psyche guide the itinerary
because the days are small, packed tightly together,
not much room for last minute changes”
Bird watcher, shell collector, tea drinker, vegetable gardener
She was a long hauler before there was a name for it
Her friend Luke said she danced
like a pollinating bee going for nectar
She was a beach town girl who went back to the land
to live in a cabin and keep a flock of chickens
Being mother to her two sons
was the highlight of her life
Marrying her husband Joe the reward
Her siblings were the song of her heart
Her grandchildren the charmed encore
She liked to quote Eknath Easwaran
about choosing only one mantra for meditation
‘If you dig shallow wells in many places
you will never go deep enough to find water’
“And that applies to life,” she said
In her poetry book “Packing a Suitcase for the After Life”
she wrote, “In lieu of death send the living flowers
Make your life payable to all those you love”
______________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United / dVerse Poets Pub
January 13th, 2023 5:20 pm
At first I thought you were writing about some wonderful friend, and thought, ‘I want to know this woman too!’ Then your book title gave it away, and I am glad I do know her, and that you also know and value her so well. (I would buy that book if it was an ebook. Would you consider selling me a pdf version?)
January 13th, 2023 8:09 pm
What a wonderful lady you describe so in-depth I love the Dire Streets as well and thrift shops and people watching etc.
Had to laugh when you wrote “she danced
like a pollinating bee going for nectar”
Wonderful poem
January 13th, 2023 8:39 pm
I liked your eulogy, Colleen. This is a nice one, I haven’t written one in ages. My favorite line, “. . . feel more prepared when I have a toy in my pocketbook . . .”
..
January 13th, 2023 11:09 pm
Wow… love how you describe yourself and the closing quote. Absolutely beautiful that last line!
January 14th, 2023 8:23 pm
She sounds like she would have been a delightful person to know.
January 14th, 2023 10:10 pm
It’s a eulogy in self-portrait.
January 15th, 2023 10:38 am
I like art museums too and listened to almost all of Dire Straits ‘ songs. Glad to know this poet and her poetry. 🙂
January 20th, 2023 12:47 pm
Wonderful! Who could be better placed to write such a eulogy?
January 20th, 2023 5:10 pm
What a wonderful poem/eulogy. I was especially smitten with these lines:
She said, “I always feel more prepared
when I have a toy in my pocketbook”
and “Whenever I don’t know what it is I’m doing
and it borders on wasting my time, I call it research”
After reading the entire poem I was left with the thought, I wish I’d known this person! I looked at the side bar and saw that you, the writer, grew up in Hull, MA. We moved to Boston from Iowa City, Iowa in 1997….and have passed by Hull many times on the fast ferry out to Provincetown or ferry rides around the Harbor Islands.
Then as I read the comments by others, and your reply, I realized this is a self-portrait eulogy…and then I did a little “wasting time” on the internet, trying to learn who this Colleen is. And I found the Life of Poet: Colleen Redman – reprinted from a February 2016 interview profile done by Sherry Blue Sky for Poets United.
So very happy to see you posting here to dVerse – and most especially this post. I do hope you’ll consider joining us tomorrow, Saturday, January 21st from 10 to 11 AM EST at OLN LIVE. The link to join is on the dVerse page with Mr. Linky that you posted this to. I’ll be hosting again. Yesterday, Thursday, we had 14 come to our LIVE session: from across the US, Kenya, Pakistan, Sweden, and the UK. Tomorrow, I already know we’ll have folks from Sweden, Pakistan and India as well as me….we’ll see how many others come. I will be hosting from San Diego though – we escape Boston’s winter for January and February in a rental apartment here – enjoying the sunshine. The torrential rains you perhaps saw in the news were in Northern CA and some rains in another area of San Diego.
I do hope you’ll join us tomorrow! Would love to hear you read this aloud 🙂
Thanks again for posting to dverse!
January 20th, 2023 7:53 pm
Thanks for the invite, Lillian. I’ll check it out but not sure I’m set up for an online event. I love Hull and enjoy sharing poetry with dVerse and Poets United.
January 20th, 2023 9:03 pm
This is wonderful! You seem to see yourself so clearly.
January 21st, 2023 12:10 pm
I enjoyed hearing you read this today.
January 21st, 2023 12:15 pm
Thank you, Merril. And Lillian who did such a great job hosting. And Joe. It was my first time on a zoom kind of format, couldn’t have done it without my husband’s help.
January 21st, 2023 12:35 pm
Meisterpoem.
Nice to hear / see you read. Thanks.
January 21st, 2023 1:53 pm
I really enjoyed listening to you read this today, Colleen, and am glad I came back to read it for myself, as it’s easy to miss nuances when listening. I recognised some of myself in it, particularly liking gingerbread more than brownies and tearing up over Andrew Wyeth’s art. I too have an Irish ear for words that took root in childhood, and am a fan of Leonard Cohen’s poetry.
January 21st, 2023 1:58 pm
I too do better when I can read a poem. I think we are all more alike than not and can recognize ourselves in others when we go deeper as poetry allows us to do.
January 21st, 2023 3:54 pm
SMiLes It’s Been Almost Ten Years Since
i First Received A Poetic Spark Way Back
on February 28, 2013 Providing
Perspective of Who i am
Deepest Within Just
Doing my Best
to come Out of
the DarK iNto the
LiGHT Colleen Loose Leaf Notes
True i Found Myself Scattering in
Leaves of Words Empty Shells Building
A Brand New
Creative Soul
Perhaps Another
Hemisphere of
Mind Finally
Coming Online
Hehe Both Literally
And Figuratively Real
From What Seemed
Like A Divided Mind
A Cog in the Mechanical
Cognition That Western Civilization
Brings As Only “A Matter of Things”
Oh The Beauty
To Find Sea Life
BacK iN Empty
Shells of Soul
Oh The Freedom
Of Being A Beach
Just A Leaf Building
New Trees Free Without
Worrying How High Or Low
The
Sky Above
Below As
Soul
Breathes
Free as Me…
Anyway in A Whim
i Return to Places
i’ve Been
Before
As Wind
Breezes Through
Free With SMiLeS AGAiN…
PaN aS Eternal Child A Soul Still
Young Naked Enough Whole Complete
Evolving
Even More
To BREaTHE Free…
Other Than That i Never
Forget A Soul Who Is
Kind to me Coming Out of DarK Before…
Yes i Still Remember Your Kind Words
When Words of Those
By Others
Were So
Rare in
DarK mY FRiEnD..:)
January 21st, 2023 5:42 pm
Nice stream of consciousness, katiemiafredrick, with a tender sentiment. I do remember you but not the words you refer to. Thank you for this poem!
January 21st, 2023 6:07 pm
Lovely and make sure your loved ones know where it is located when the time is right.
January 21st, 2023 6:12 pm
Thanks msjadeli. Good idea. I’ll put it in my lock box.
January 22nd, 2023 12:02 pm
I love the way you describe yourself in the third person and how you manage to capture (maybe better) with this technique, it was really inspiring to hear you read it live… really good (as usual)
September 30th, 2025 7:58 am
Wow! I believe I was in my dark phase of life – transitioning into my New Life! I don’t remember this at all! It is truly soulful!
September 30th, 2025 8:00 am
I read all the comments too & loved that you were invited to read in Zoom audio session! It must of been a dream come true for you.
September 30th, 2025 9:44 am
Joe encouraged me and helped me do it with Zoom, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have. It was fun, but I wouldn’t want to do it regularly. Here it is. Joe videotaped it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBDmMHViSsg