Notes About The Poem
image of Granddad's portable Remington typewriter
poem submitted to "The Marvelous Thingamajig" poetry contest, Daniel Henry Rodgers, sponsor 5/23/2026
THE MACHINE THAT WAITED FOR ME-dhr
It sat there—not as metal, not as memory,
but as something half-asleep and listening.
A quiet creature of keys and shadows,
its body dulled by dust, its spirit still humming
beneath the years.
It had known the weight of a man
who believed words could bend the world~
a man whose hands were rough with labor
yet gentle with letters, as if each keystroke
were a small salvation.
I remember the music of it~
that click-clack cadence like rain on a tin roof,
like a heartbeat learning to speak.
I was a child then, cross-legged under his desk,
catching the syllables like fireflies,
not knowing they were seeds, not knowing they were mine.
When Granddad passed, I carried the machine upward
as though escorting a relic to its resting place~
a silent procession through the narrow throat of the attic.
It waited there—through summers that smelt of cedar and heat,
through winters that whispered of things forgotten, it waited~
a sentinel of stories I was too afraid to write.
Years later, the attic groaned under my return,
as if recognizing the footsteps of someone
who had once believed in beginnings.
The machine was still there, its silhouette steady,
its longing patient. It had survived because some things endure
even when we abandon them~
faith, memory, and the quiet insistence of a dream
we pretend we outgrew.
When I touched it, the dust rose like breath.
The first key resisted-a refusal,
a reminder of all the years I’d resisted myself.
But then, a single letter, dark and certain,
punched through the page like a pulse returning.
By the third paragraph, I understood:
I had not resurrected the machine. It had resurrected me.
And somewhere between the rafters and the rising words,
I realized this truth: I was never the one writing the story.
I was the story finally finding its way back to the page.
The accompanying memoir vignette can be read at poetrysoup.com/short_stories/a_dream_deferred_13827
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