7 posts tagged “poetry”
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
Prayer for a Tenspeed Heart
Let the fire of my body
propel and warm me
and let each darkness
reveal its plenitude.
Let the hills
flatten under my wheels
and let the eloquent curves
yield up their good surprise.
Let my heart be obstinate
when I need to climb
and let my lowliest gears
restrain my spinning down.
Let there be flatland, too,
and into that glittering place
let me stretch with the heart of a lover,
at full speed, blind and intent.
---Barbara Hendryson
...and I'm returning this book to the library.
Sonnet 2 from "The Autumn Sonnets"
If I can let you go as trees let go
Their leaves, so casually, one by one;
If I can come to know what they do know,
That fall is the release, the consummation,
Then fear of time and the uncertain fruit
Would not distemper the great lucid skies
This strangest autumn, mellow and acute.
If I can take the dark with open eyes
And call it seasonal, not harsh or strange
(For love itself may need a time of sleep),
And, treelike, stand unmoved before the change,
Lose what I lose to keep what I can keep,
The strong root still alive under the snow,
Love will endure---if can let you go.
-----May Sarton
There will come soft rains and and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire.
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last, when it is done.
Not one will mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly.
And Spring herself when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
----Sara Teasdale
Very Victorian, I know, but it reminds me of Spring, in an ominous way. She killed herself, like her former poet-lover Vachel Lindsay. But this poem also reminds me of man's ignorance (at all times, but especially) during the nuclear age.
We've been thinking of heading out to the Farallon Islands (26 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge) for a day trip on the boats (Mike's and Jacob's), and I just read that between 1946 and 1970, at least 80,000 55-gallon drums of radioactive waste (some from Lawrence Livermore lab) were dumped at the marine sanctuary. Also, the USS Independence, an aircraft carrier used as a target at the Bikini atoll atom bomb tests, was sunk off the islands (among other wrecks). The estimated half-life of the nuclear waste is 3 billion years. And the proximity of the San Andreas Fault to the area is a concern for scientists, as a major event could rupture the drums (some of which were apparently shot at while being sunk).
The Farallones (or "rocks" in Spanish) are the largest breeding colony of seabirds in the lower 48 states, home to the world's largest colony of a couple of endangered bird species, and to a huge variety of pellagic (blue whales, dolphins, great white sharks, etc) and pinniped (elephant seals, sea lions, etc) wildlife. There's a research facility on the islands now, but landings by the public are prohibited, now that the islands are under federal protection.
Tragic. Little did Ms. Teasdale know of the depths of humans' appetite for destruction. I don't think I'll be eating any of the fish caught out there (although at the rate we're going, is there any safe food anymore?).
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal,
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it,
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
---Mary Oliver
It was a year ago today that I was short of breath and gasping for air as we walked down New Montgomery St. to get to a new tapas bar. My sister and our guests were smoking up a storm, it was cold and windy, and I felt like I was climbing Mt. Everest, I was breathing so hard. I've come a long way since then, thank God.
Coincidentally, I had my CT scan today, and I've been coughing for the past 6 weeks, so I'm a bit worried. It's kept me from making vacation plans.
We moved into this house right after I was diagnosed, and had no time or energy to decorate or truly get settled. We gave our giant oak bookshelf away, thinking it would be replaced by more mobile bookshelves. Alas, those were never purchased and all my books are still boxed, in the garage. So I can't idly saunter to the shelf, pull out a book on poetry and glance over it. So Vox will have to be a repository for awhile, see how that works.
i am running into a new year
i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twentysix and thirtysix
even thirtysix but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me
----Lucille Clifton
(do not stand at my grave and weep)
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
---Mary Frye, 1932 (version published on a postcard, according to this site.) There are other versions but this one seems the simplest one.
I originally saw this poem as a newspaper clipping on my friend Tara's refrigerator. Maybe it had something to do with the recent death of her aunt, whose house she now lives in. I guess it hit home and I want to remember it...for later reference...
Not meant to sadden anyone or anything like that.
