I am delighted and a little bit startled by my time as Writer in Residence at the Gloucester Writers Center. I am also very grateful. My stay was a period of deep writing for me. It was also an unforgettable introduction to the city of Gloucester, to its landscape, and to its inhabitants. I was honored to meet Henry my first day there. On subsequent visits we had charming and unguarded conversations. Despite the fact that I was a stranger to the area, the Gloucester Writers community gave me a free place to stay. As the days went by, the cast of characters around the center increased and grew more colorful. All remained welcoming. Thanks to everyone, but a special thanks to Amanda for setting up the reading and for being my champion. In gratitude, here is a poem I wrote as a response to the crowd at the reading who were craving “sci-fi.”
Weird
How weird is it to be
awakened
in the middle of the
night
By an alien
craft
that descends
in the shape of a
white ceramic-coated
box
it’s lights glowing
through a
fog
at the top
and its engines
bubbling and cooing
like the trunk of Parnell’s
1964 Chevrolet Malibu
(will I be just a
scorch mark by
morning)?
So weird that it took
until the bright
light
of morning for me to
understand:
this was no shiny
extra terrestrial space ship
but the refrigerator
in the cottage
in which I’m staying
whose lights were
the diffusion of
LEDs
from the Wi-Fi router
sitting on top—
Due to the canny placement
of a paper towel roll
between me and
those bright pinpoints—
and whose circuits told it
that moisture was collecting—
Time to defrost!
Bubble! Coo!
And how weird is it that
Digital wireless technology—
science fiction only a few
decades ago—
and the invention of the defrost
cycle—
almost a hundred years back now—
led to a 1950s sci-fi dream
of faster-than-light ships
crossing the universe
just to see me?
— Ellen A. Wilkin