Poem of the moment

[giselle]

thanks Marilyn, I think that's true about a child's promise. we have to realize that their promise is indeed, their promise, not our promise as parents. coming to this realization is an act of love. of course, coming to a realization is one thing, acting on it can be difficult and perhaps involves building a new relationship with the adult that your child has become. makes me think of the Bob Dylan line, although his context was different, "your sons and daughters are beyond your command".

[DWill]

Unlike so many other poems I read, this is one of direct emotion, rather than being somewhat abstract or filtered emotionally. It is plain, but I do find it powerful and affecting. I like the way it doesn't tell too much about the specifics of the situation, so we can fit ourselves more easily into it. It's good not to be afraid of being sentimental, I think. My favorite part:

the way you smiled forty years ago
when life was insane
and I was confused
and you
were sanctuary

[GentleReader9]

Wow! It is amazing the degree to which I can misread a poem once in a while. I have looked at it carefully, and I now see exactly what is clearly meant that you all saw the first time you read it: the poem is about a parent and child.

I read the string outside in, starting with DWill's posting of a favorite section, then the poem, then everyone's reading, then the poem again. In doing this, probably too fast, I got the notion that the "speaker" had decided to leave a lover of many years, a lover who was sorry to let go, but glad to see the other partner fulfilled rather than throwing the rest of her life into the relationship. I see now that doesn't really work as a reading, but it was an interesting mistake for me to make. Once again, I have reason to note my slow process of maturation in regard to partner relationships, but that I may be growing in the right direction, finally.

[realiz]

GR9,
But this is the beauty of this poem....it could be a lover that had to let go, or a good friend, or sibling, grandmother, grandfather, any long enduring relationship that has weathered the years.

[Grindle]

Or letting go a love which could not be allowed...or lived out... for whatever reason..

[Grim]

Emily Dickinson - I heard a Fly buzz -- when I died

I heard a Fly buzz when I died
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air
Between the Heaves of Storm

The Eyes around had wrung them dry
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset when the King
Be witnessed in the Room

I willed my Keepsakes Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable and then it was
There interposed a Fly

With Blue uncertain stumbling Buzz
Between the light and me
And then the Windows failed and then
I could not see to see

[Saffron]

It is nearly 12 noon and I am still in my pajamas, glued to my computer. I am working on my personal financial mess (taxes, checkbook, bills and financial aid forms for 3). In order to keep myself sane, every so often I stop to read a poem or pop on to BT. Here is a wonderful poem by modern Korean poet, Ko Un. I just love this!

A Drunkard

I've never been an individual entity.
Sixty trillion cells!
I'm a living collection
staggering zigzag along.
Sixty trillion cells! All drunk.


and maybe one more--


Ripples

Look! Do all the ripples move
because one ripple started to move?

No.

It's just that all the ripples move at once.
Everything's been askew from the start.

[realiz]

It is nearly 12 noon and I am still in my pajamas

I wanted to stay in mine this morning and just sit and read in the quiet house, but I had to go to work. Tomorrow is Saturday, so tomorrow I'll sit that extra hour, read my book, drink my coffee and relax.

[Saffron]

Praise Song for the Day
by Elizabeth Alexander

A Poem for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other's
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what's on the other side.

I know there's something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.


Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

[Saffron]

This poem, describes the past week in Virginia rather well. I like the opening of the poem, but who in the right mind is out at daybreak on a frosty morn?! The last two stanzas put me in mind of Emily Dickinson's poem, "Hope is the thing with feathers"

The Darkling Thrush
Thomas Hardy


I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware

*
cop·pice
n.
A thicket or grove of small trees or shrubs, especially one maintained by periodic cutting or pruning to encourage suckering, as in the cultivation of cinnamon trees for their bark.