Summer Wax, New Ruins
Adam Bignell, September 2024
In October, Ms. Shear referred to my daughter as precocious. By February, she was upgraded to uncanny. My wife Allison overheard the principal use the word eerie in June.
Miranda is 11. She doesn't cry when she skins her knees and she insists on wearing dresses. One summer, she secretly biked a pair of jeans to the donation centre herself. She pumps her legs ferociously on the swing. She keeps breaking her glasses. She has long red hair that she brushes obsessively before school that is always matted by 4pm. She speaks to animals in terrariums. She abstains from tapping on the glass and advises others to do the same. She is brotherless and sisterless. Her end of year report card asserted, somewhat anticlimactically, that she was a pleasure to teach. She's mostly a normal kid.
Before Thanksgiving break, Ms. Shear asked if I'd stay to talk to her. This had never happened before. Miranda hurt herself regularly but she rarely, actually, never, got in what you'd call trouble with the school authorities.
“Don't worry, no principal's office,” she'd read my consternation, “It's just about an assignment I gave last week.” She stopped me before I could fetch Miranda, who was already attempting to climb up the slide outside. In her grade 5 classroom, I sat in a sun-bleached plastic chair on a doodle of a car. I could smell the whiteboard.
“As you may be aware, I recently asked the class to introduce us to their families. I told them to be creative.” I was not aware. I braced for a stick figure slaughter as Shear pushed papers around on her desk, searching.
“Almost everybody brought in photos. Some brought in drawings. Marshall brought in his puppy.” She found whatever she was looking for under Social Studies 5.
“Miranda… well…” she laid dual loose leaf sheets in front of me. Miranda’s handwriting alright, valiant loopy cursive, imperfect but perfectly legible.
“She said these poems were her parents. She read them as her presentation. It's good you and Allison take an active role in—”
“What?”
She looked somewhat taken back. “She clearly had more than a little inspiration.”
I picked up a page and read the first few lines.
“I've never seen this in my life.”
“Allison, then?”
I read further. Not likely. “I doubt it. If anything she likes to let Miranda struggle.”
“Well. I don't know what to say. Simply put, these were not written by an 11 year old.”
“I'll talk to her. Thanks for letting me know.”
I left, taking the poems with me. From a window in the hall, I could see Miranda, finally victorious at the top of the playground, balancing atop what was meant to hold her in. She'd be grateful for a few extra minutes. I sat on a low bench intended for children down the hall from 5S.
I read the first poem.
Summer Wax
A crescent slash across the yawning dark
Above us, here the grass is newly dewed.
Alighting now, a yellow meadowlark,
Who's hue in rising dawn is rendered nude
Like us, the splayed, the unashamed, in crude
Defiance, gnashing apples, seeds and all.
A squall of nectar, a heavenward call.
Upon your taut skin you scrawled your new name
In twig text, “Heather, ward of the bluebird
And meadowlarks,” you will comfort the lame,
And memorise their songs, the bits we heard
Before they died, before the robins stirred.
Return! Look up! The crescent’s now an eye,
Her gaze a-waver, blinking on a stye.
And quickly moved on to the second:
New Ruins
The metamorphic statuette is sent
To transform once again, across the floor.
Demeter, fertile, holding wheat, and bent
Towards rebirth, reduced to marble gore.
The boy who sees, who interrupts his tour,
Does shutter and catch her, rapt in the air,
On film, he's fixed her, he's captured her there.
A keen perspective, shorter than the plinth,
While dodging a discus, was all to keep
Her whole. Here lies a piece of hyacinth,
A symbol lost on he who chose to reap
A fragment of meaning’s black labyrinth.
And the tour marches on, across the hall,
Across the faultline, undeveloped all.
I felt embarrassed, like I had when I had walked in on her in the bathroom. Seeing Miranda’s daring but overlarge Gs heading off gnashing and gore was all wrong, improper. Shear was right; An 11 year old did not write this. My fatherhood kicked in: My daughter knows the word gore. She knows the word splayed. Logic kicked in: She copied these from the internet. Of course.
I transcribed an especially unique line into the search box.
“Heather, ward of the bluebird and the meadowlarks”
Nothing.
“A keen perspective, shorter than the plinth”
Nothing.
Summer Wax poem, New Ruins Poem, poem about parents, meadowlark poems.
All I got was other poems. Not one line in common anywhere. I lost track of time trying query after query. And found myself convinced… Someone had told her what to write.
“Daddy?”
She peeked down the hall from the coat room, her hair matted and shoes sandy. I folded the poems and pocketed them.
—
Allison, as expected, had no idea.
“There's no way. She must have copied these.”
I explained my attempts but invited her to try herself. Twenty minutes later, she came up empty.
We checked our history. Nothing remotely related, except for “close up pictures of the moon.” The results were innocuous. Lots of NASA. A tangential connection at best. No Demeter. No “pictures of naked people.”
We racked our brains. She didn't have a phone, but could have used someone's from school. Were they talking to someone online? Who dictated these poems to them? Had she copied from a friend’s older sibling? From an unearthed book of forgotten verse, from the back boxes in the garage?
Impossible to say without any leads. We called Miranda down from her room for a family meeting.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No, honey.”
“It feels like I'm in trouble.”
Her feet dangled from the edge of the dining room chair as dust motes swirled around her in galactic arms.
“We just wanted to talk to you about school. Have you been getting any extra help on your assignments?”
“I knew it.” Allison and I looked at each other.
“This is about the poems.”
We all paused a moment. Allison broke the beat.
“Is there something you want to tell us? We promise we won't be upset.”
“There's nothing to say. They're you. This one is you and this one is you,” she pointed at us in turn.
“Who gave you these poems?”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn't write these, did you Miranda?”
She thought a moment, scrunched her face like when she tried to do long division in her head.
“They came through me.”
This time Allison and I didn't look at each other, but we both felt gravity shift.
“Did you find these in a book or —”
“They came through me. I heard them in my head and I wrote them in my —”
“Sweetie, an 11 year old can't possibly —”
“Not all at once. Bit by bit. Like Legos.”
“You can tell us the truth Miran —”
But then she started to recite. Summer Wax. Word for word, it was the poem I was holding. Her recitation added dimensions I hadn't considered, highlighting where the rhythm slackened, punctuating consonants in her own Miranda way. And when she hit the last iamb, a word I learned from Miranda, later, she turned to me. And she recited New Ruins, staring me dead in the eyes. Fertile, rapt, discus, faultline. Undeveloped all.
The truth is, I was terrified.
—
The three of us sat across an arced table on low chairs, my wife and I flanking Miranda. The specialist rested on her elbows across from us, a beatific grin topping off her casual and approachable demeanour. The poems bridged the gap.
“Can you tell me what a hyacinth is?”
“It's a flower.”
“What type of flower?”
“Like a tall bundle.”
“And can you tell me where you learned what a hyacinth is?”
“I dunno. In a book probly.”
“Can you remember which book?”
Miranda played with the hem of her sleeve.
“Can you remember which book you learned hyacinth from?”
“Well, I've read a lot more books than you have.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because adults read a lot of books.”
“Caroline says her parents never read.”
Allison turned to Miranda.
“Are you reading a lot of books at school?”
“I told you I go to the library before Dad picks me up.”
“We thought you were just hanging out.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know. Not doing anything specific.”
“You thought I went to the library to do nothing?”
—
On Monday, I left work early. I arrived at the school at 2pm, checked myself in at the office, and made my way past pasta art and class photos to the library.
As the library evolved from racks of learning-to-read books to encyclopaedias and novels, the colours became less vibrant. I thought of my own office I'd just left, where grey reigned supreme. Why did growth coincide so often with boredom? On the near side, a paper maché pterodactyl hung from a ceiling fan. On the high school side, a poster advertised local vocational programs.
As I approached the science section on the vibrant side, a voice rasped from behind the desk.
“Can I help you?” I approached the desk. A tiny librarian with magnified eyes smiled up from her low chair.
“I’m Miranda’s father. Miranda Beck?”
“Oh!” The woman practically creaked as she stood in excitement, “Delightful young lady. Curious girl.” The double meaning didn’t escape me.
“Does she spend a lot of time here?”
“Oh yes. Every day. Sometimes over recess. I’d be alone mostly if not for her. Sometimes she helps me sort.”
I felt ashamed that I didn’t know this. And scared that my daughter had a life out of sight, even if it was under the safe guardianship of the pterodactyl and the librarian.
“Does she read a lot?”
“All the time that girl is reading. And with her little notes, too.” Another blow, but the librarian spared me the embarrassment of asking. “Come. I’ll show you.”
“I’m Peter by the way,” a late formality, as she came around the desk.
“A pleasure. Mrs. Conway. Rose. Here.” She grabbed a book from a nearby cart titled The Industrial Revolution: Machines and Labour. From the top, a crinkled purple page marker stuck out. The librarian flipped to the page. A second sticky annotated a section on trade unions. There, ebullient cursive abandoned for near-monospace print, Miranda’s hand again: “A lot of poor people working together can make rich people do things.” Following this, a code I couldn’t read.
“Curious girl. She likes her Dewey. Anyways.” She plunked the book back to the cart. “Looking for something specific?”
I explained the business about hyacinths and was directed to a small section in the grade 8 science curriculum on naturalism and Linnaean taxonomy. I sat on the floor, with the bottom shelf. I started to scan the spines, left to right, until I got to Flowers of North America. I pulled it from the shelf, and opened it from the back, to the index. I fingered from Aster down to Cinquefoil and Hyacinth before I realised the idiocy of what I was doing. I had a much better index.
I started from the left of the shelf, but looked at the space between the tops of the books and the shelf above. Then, there it was: A page marker, this one blue, in Plant Families. Sure enough, on the page for Hyacinthus. A note accompanied: “Bundle of flowers on a tall stick. See 292.13 and The Waste Land (Eliot).”
I pulled out my phone. I did not know my Dewey. Greek Myth. I asked the librarian. Found the shelf, scanned the tops. Pink marker. “Apollo’s boyfriend. Apollo killed him while teaching him discus. See 796.48.”
Olympic Games. Librarian. Marker. “Like an old heavy frisbee, points for throwing far.” No lead. A dead end. But… where had this path started?
I stood up and scanned instead from the top left of the section, counting markers. On this section alone, 28, about 4 per shelf. I pulled one at random. Colour Comprehension. On Tints and Shades “Can make a shade by adding black or a tint by adding white. Sorta like positive and negative connotations? 302.22 I guess.” Kinds of Communication.
Another realization: I was starting too close to the words. I had the librarian direct me to the shelves devoted to poetry. I counted the markers. The book with the fewest had two.
—
How big is my daughter?
This is the question that rang through my head. I wasn’t sure what it asked, or if I even wanted an answer. It’s just what was there, as I dropped her at the roundabout, as I watched her and Caroline destroying dandelions at the park, as I tucked her in under her glow-in-the-dark stickers.
And sometimes, on the verge of sleep, a second question.
Is she bigger than me?
It couldn’t be. I heard my wife’s voice. “There's no way.”
One day, as we pulled into the garage, the falling door killing the late afternoon light, I turned to Miranda before she hopped out of the sliding door.
“How many books have you read, Miranda?”
“A bunch. But not the whole way.”
“You don't finish them?”
“I don't even really start them. I just jump around.”
“How do you know where to jump?”
She shrugged. “I read what I need. Can we go inside now? I'm hungry.”
—
The second trip to the specialist was even weirder than the first. The same configuration as last, our little family across from the holder of some advanced degree in childhood development, Miranda between Mom and Dad.
“You said these poems were about your Mom and Dad right? Why did you make your Dad a little boy?”
“I never said that.” It was an off day, but too late to switch the appointment without eating the booking fee.
“Okay, what did you say then?”
“I said the poems were my Mom and Dad.”
“But these poems aren't your Mom and Dad. If you wanted to ask to have a sleepover with Caroline, would you ask these poems?”
“You’re patronizing me.”
“Honey!” Allison turned to her. She hadn't needed the library to learn this word, that's for sure. “Don't be rude.”
“Fine. Sorry.”
“I just want to understand. Maybe you can help me?”
She scrunched her face again, but this time, balled her fists too. This wasn't problem solving, but “using her patience” as we had taught.
She asked for my phone, and clicked the lock button. My lock screen appeared, showing me and Allison, holding a baby Miranda.
“Is this picture about my parents?”
“Well…”
“These are my parents, and that is me as a baby.”
“In a way, yes.”
“You wouldn't ask whoever took this picture why they made my mom's hair red.”
“That's because your mom's hair is red.”
“That's exactly what I'm saying.”
“Okay. So your poems capture your parents just like a photo. Then why did you capture your father as a little boy?”
“You're looking at the wrong thing. You need to look at the whole poem, not just one part of it. The boy isn't my Dad. The poem is.”
—
It was hard to explain to people exactly what the trouble was. My daughter had an abnormally advanced aptitude for poetry. Most parents would rejoice. They told me so explicitly when I voiced anything like worry to the other parents waiting at the end-of-day roundabout. But something nagged. There was the thought: She can certainly write better poetry than I can. Was it jealousy? Not quite. It wasn't about the poetry but rather… the method. Could she apply a better methodology than I could? And if she could…
—
It was Allison's idea to bring her to a new kind of specialist.
Mom and Dad, Miranda in the middle. This time, the holder of two advanced degrees and a tenured position sat across from us. The office was less… booky than I had imagined. Mostly, the desk and shelves were covered in junk and kitschy conference paraphernalia. But there were at least a couple of disorganized stacks. And above the outdated Mac, a framed proclamation. Philosophiae Doctor - Comparative Literature.
“Some of my undergrads still have trouble with iambic pentameter.”
“It's not hard,” Miranda shot back. Her displeasure at speaking to strange adults in strange offices had grown more plain with each additional visit.
“Well. Not if you're clever it's not.” The professor grinned, his grey whiskers spreading across his cheeks.
“Even if you're not clever. You just need to read.”
“Well, it's one thing to read a poem and another thing to write it.”
“That's not what I mean. Iamb. Unstressed then stressed. “a-LONE”. “Mir-AN”. Iamb. I am an iamb. Hah. Pentameter. Pentagon. Five sides. Five iambs. It's right there in the name. That took 2 seconds. Easy.” She let her forehead drop to the edge of the table and stared down at her shoes.
The professor addressed me and Allison.
“It's Rhyme Royal. Chaucher’s invention. Are you familiar with rhyme schemes?”
Maybe it was jealousy. Or at least insecurity. I couldn’t say no in front of her.
“The big ones.”
“ABABBCC. Either a tercet and two couplets, or a quatrain and a tercet. Arguable which, in the case of Miranda’s poems. They don't strictly adhere to iambic either.”
Miranda spoke without lifting her head.
“Rules should inspire creativity, not limit it.”
“Yes, yes indeed.” The prof leaned way back, his hands resting on his head. “You've got a sharp kid on your hands. Wish all my students were like Miranda here.”
On the way home, Miranda began to quietly cry from the back seat.
“Nobody gets it. All they can talk about is me. But the poems are you two, not me.”
“It's okay honey, we understand. We love your poems, no matter what anyone says.”
“I don't think you understand them either. It's like your faces have been erased.”
We all watched the sky turn from pink to dusty blue, and before long we were back on our cul-de-sac.
That night, I looked at myself in the mirror.
—
We quit it with the specialists. The school year continued, and Miranda kept on being Miranda. She performed well in school, but excelled in poetry. She had a knack for trivia and could write a mean five paragraph essay.
Meanwhile, I became friends with the librarian. If I didn't have a meeting, I would get to school an hour early, and see what I could learn from my daughter's coloured page markers. I learned about digraphs and diphthongs. I learned about the International Phonetic Alphabet. I learned about caesuras and enjambment. Bombmaker. Thumbmark. I learned how rare the letter permutation “mbm” is in English. Limbmeal. I learned that in the capital of Maldives, two hundred thousand people live in six square kilometers, in towers climbing up out of Indian Ocean surf. I learned that cashmere comes from goats, not sheep. I learned that my wife was born under a waning gibbous moon. I learned about possible connections between chronotype and CLOCK genes. I learned that camera basically means ‘dark room’ in Latin. I learned about parallax error and stellar parallax and Steller's Jay and that not all blue birds are bluebirds. I learned that libraries are much more useful than you'd think.
I had digitized our poems early on in our foray into childhood cognition, and on down days I would read them in my idling car before I made my way to the cubicle labelled as mine.
“Rapt in the air. Shorter than the plinth.”
I spoke my favourite fragments out loud before I unbuckled, mantras against mototony. I appreciated the trio of voiced dental fricatives in “than the plinth.” I wondered idly if Miranda intended “rapt in the air” to be homonymous with “wrapped in the air” and delighted myself when I realized that I not only hoped, but truly believed that she had.
One night, as I kissed Miranda goodnight, I noticed the original copy of New Ruins on her bedside table, under her Pixar lamp. Its last few lines had been erased and rewritten. Eraser rubbings still peppered the page.
I reread the poem in full. Miranda pulled the comforter up over her shoulders.
“Why did you change it?”
She gave me a big, animated eye roll and smiled.
“Come on Dad. You're so close.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn't rewrite it.”
And I heard the answer in my head, as Miranda said it.
“You did.”
I smiled, and reread the lines.
And the tour marches on, through all the halls,
Admiring the sculptures, the falling walls.
I kissed my daughter goodnight, told her I loved her, and made my way to bed.