Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by the lovely talented poet, Irene Latham HERE. Make sure you stop by to see what Irene has for us this week.
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Because it’s the holidays and I recently traveled, I found myself looking at too many pictures of me and deleting many. I thought of being human and our personal relationship to the ever present and ever changing face we each carry around.
There I was, smiling in front of ancient buildings, at a Thanksgiving party with relatives, posing with my son in California. It’s surprised me how much I look like both my parents. It’s difficult to describe, but a variety of emotions welled up.
I discovered Carl Sandburg wrote a poem that resonated. It was in this book, and the poem was originally published in 1930:
PHIZZOG
by Carl Sandburg
This face you got,
This here phizzog you carry around,
You never picked it out for yourself, at all, at all--did
you?
This here phizzog--somebody handed it to you--am I
right?
Somebody said, "Here's yours, now go see what you can
do with it."
"No goods exchanged after
being taken away"--
This face you got.
This poem is sweet and funny. No goods exchanged, indeed!
Happy Holidays to everyone!! Hopefully the arctic weather doesn’t preclude my family from traveling four hours to see my husband’s sister for Christmas. We’ll all take our phizzogs with us for photos and celebrate Christmas and the end of 2022. We are lucky we have the freedom to do so. God bless the people of Ukraine.
Ha! It is sweet and funny. I have found myself discovering people of my past in my face. And, I think about it with a layer of experience as Mom who has adopted children. I wonder what they are seeing as they age and if they look for connection in that way. Fortunately, my kids and I have good relationships and we talk about things as needed. We haven’t had heartfelt adoption-related talks in a while, though. I so hope travel plans aren’t wrecked! We all need a dose of loving family and friends.
I hope you get to see all your loved ones and seeing those familiar faces. 🙂
I hope you get to see all your loved ones and see those familiar faces. 🙂
I love these thoughts on your phizzog (what a word!) and the emotion upon seeing your parents there…and Linda’s sharing her experience as an adoptive mom. I grew up being told I have a “Dykes” nose (my father’s side of the family), which made a large nose feel like a real treasure! I feel especially connected to that side of my family and don’t doubt that this positive treatment helped me focus on other things I’m proud to share with my Dykes people—like a positive mindset and an adventurous, pioneering spirit, both cultivated by those ancestors who settled the miserable-hot, rattlesnake & mosquito-infested lowlands of the Florida panhandle. xo
Your nose certainly suits you, however anyone sees it. I never would describe it as large, not after my marrying into an Italian family full of proud handsome noses. There is reality and then what people say is reality if that makes sense. 🙂 Merry Christmas, Irene!
phizzog! This word makes me laugh! Cannot wait to throw it around during our holiday gathering. Enjoy yours!
Wishing you safe travels, Janice. I love the thoughts from the poem, “now go see what you can
do with it.” is something we all might ponder! Merry Christmas!
I look in the mirror sometimes and see a dear aunt’s face. More and more often, I see one of my parents in one of my sisters’ faces. I hope you get to join your family and celebrate all those phizzogs together!
Oh, how I know what you mean about looking at a photo (or in a mirror) and suddenly seeing your parents! It can be disconcerting and comforting at the same time.
How serendipitous, I caught a glimpse of a past relative in the mirror just today while washing… never thought of this likeness before. Thanks for sharing Sandburg’s fun poem, as others I also love his word “phizzog” and hope I can work it into a poem sometime. Wishing you and your family a safe, warm trip, and joyful Christmas and New Year, thanks Janice!