finale

hard to fathom that it's already the end of poetry month; have barely tapped into my collection of poems.  Ah well, next year.

Waving Goodbye
Wesley McNair

Why, when we say goodbye
at the end of an evening, do we deny
we are saying it at all, as in We'll
be seeing you, or I'll call, or Stop in,
somebody's always at home? Meanwhile, our friends,
telling us the same things, go on disappearing
beyond the porch light into the space
which except for a moment here or there
is always between us, no matter what we do.
Waving goodbye, of course, is what happens
when the space gets too large
for words – a gesture so innocent
and lonely, it could make a person weep
for days. Think of the hundreds of unknown
voyagers in the old, fluttering newsreel
patting and stroking the growing distance
between their nameless ship and the port
they are leaving, as if to promise I'll always
remember, and just as urgently, Always
remember me. It is loneliness, too,
that makes the neighbor down the road lift
two fingers up from his steering wheel as he passes
day after day on his way to work in the hello
that turns into goodbye? What can our own raised
fingers to for him, locked in his masculine
purposes and speeding away inside the glass?
How can our waving wipe away the reflex
so deep in the woman next door to smile
and wave on her way into her house with the mail,
we'll never know if she is happy
or sad or lost? It can't. Yet in that moment
before she and all the others and we ourselves
turn back to our disparate lives, how
extraordinary it is that we make this small flag
with our hands to show the closeness we wish for
in spite of what pulls us apart again
and again: the porch light snapping off,
the car picking its way down the road through the dark.

And after several days of no cents (and nonsense, truly), found four pennies.  Now my need is of a fountain.  Happy Friday, happy May.

savage creative storm

As I've been crafting and creating an Arts Guild in my community this season, a snippet from Rilke's Duino Elegies has been running through my head.  Here is an excerpt from the first elegy.

Do you still not know how little endures?

Fling the nothing you are grasping

out into the spaces we breathe.

Maybe the birds

will feel in their flight

how the air has expanded.

Can you see?  Springtimes have needed you.

And there are stars expecting you to notice them.

From out of the past, a wave rises to meet you

the way the strains of a violin

come through an open window

just as you walk by.

Man Creating Bird

As if it were all by design.

But are you the one designing it?

Were you not always distracted by yearning,

as though some lover were about to appear?

Let yourself feel it, that yearning

It connects you with those

who have sung it through the ages,

sung especially of love unrequited.

Shouldn't this oldest of sufferings

finally bear fruit for us?

Is it not time

to free ourselves from the beloved

even as we, trembling, endure the loving?

As the arrow endures the bowstring's tension

so that, released, it travels farther.

For there is nowhere to remain.

Je ne demande rien a personne

From my beloved volume from a beloved aunt, Prayers from the Ark.

The Prayer of the Cat
 Carmen Bernos de Gasztold


Lord,
I am the cat.
It is not, exactly, that I have something to ask of You!
No--
I ask nothing of anyone--
but,
if You have by some chance, in some celestial barn,
a little white mouse,
or a saucer of milk,
I know someone who would relish them.
Wouldn't You like someday
to put a curse on the whole race of dogs?
If so, I should say,



Amen.

(Sorry for the no photo layout.  Blogspot has evidently changed it's photo layout and it won't allow me to access my own photo album.  It may take me a couple of days to figure this out.  Anyway, you were spared more darling Bogart photos.)

Tweeting/Twittering

iPoem

George Bilgere

Someone's taken a bite

from my laptop's glowing apple,

the damaged fruit of our disobedience,

of which we must constantly be reminded.

There's the fatal crescent,

the dark smile

of Eve, who never dreamed of a laptop,

who, in fact, didn't even have clothes,

or anything else for that matter,

(Joe Bar, my favorite neighborhood coffee shop)

which was probably the nicest thing

about the Garden, I'm thinking,

as I sit here in the café

with my expensive computer,

afraid to get up even for a minute

in order to go to the bathroom

because someone might steal it

in this fallen world she invented

with a single bite

of an apple nobody, and I mean

nobody,

was going to tell her not to eat. 

(la nuit)

Sky Magic

 (sunrise from my loft)

Song

Ashley Bryan

(sunset outside Chicago, summer 09)

Sing to the sun

It will listen

And warm your words

Your joy will rise

Like the sun

And glow

Within you

(sunset at Volunteer Park)

Sing to the moon

It will hear

And soothe your cares

Your fears will set

Like the moon

And fade

Within you.

 (moonrise outside my window, autumn 09)

from The Rose Tattoo

Tennessee Williams

There is something wild in the air,

no wind, but everything's moving...

and I can hear the star-noises.  Hear them?

Hear the star noises?

 (obviously, not from my camera!)

Birthday homage

 (making of blueberry muffins, summer 09)

As we learned to sing Twinkle, Twinkle last summer, I got Ms. Soli a book of sun & star poetry, along with glow-in-the-dark stars for her 2nd birthday today.  Here is one of the poems from her new book.

 (at Point No Point Lighthouse, summer 09)

Sun

Lyn Littlefield Hoopes

Soleiel!

I'm your star

center stage 

the poem on your page

beauty

power

the beat ablaze

(inhaling tortilla chips on the day of Darwin's birth)

I amaze

I am the candle on your cake

a sparkler burning bright

I am light

splendor

bliss

(Christmas Dinner, 09)

at dawn, your kiss

tenderly

I come to you

a diamond

on the morning dew

I am the wonder of all sky

I am the twinkle

in your eye.

Between Walls

a William Carlos Williams poem that has nothing to do with plums--ice cold or any other temperature.

(alley near Volunteer Park, Tuesday's walk)

the back wings

of the

hospital where

nothing

will grow lie

cinders

in which shine

the broken

pieces of a green

bottle

keys!

Okay, this poem is a tad melancholy to illustrate the fact that I have a keyboard in my house.  Yes, it's a sad state when I'm excited by a plastic set of six octaves, but there you have it.  I'm playing for a recital in a couple of weeks and need daily practice to be ready.  A friend is loaning me her keyboard.  Haven't had a piano in my house for over a decade, so this is a treat.

Piano


D. H. Lawrence

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.


In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.


So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

(And in somewhat unrelated news, my favorite singer just gave her farewell recital at Carnegie Hall last night--classmates who were there said it was one of the most stunning performances they'd heard.  And her dress was fabulous.  [No, this is not her actual dress; Carnegie does not allow gauche photographs during a performance.])

synchronicity

I've been reading/writing poetry for 30 years and yesterday and today, two separate people told me that I needed to read David Whyte's poetry.  I did and have fallen in love.  Poke around his website and see what delights and resonates with you.

Working Together

We shape our self
to fit this world
and by the world
are shaped again.
The visible
and the invisible
working together
in common cause,
to produce
the miraculous.
I am thinking of the way
the intangible air
passed at speed
round a shaped wing
easily
holds our weight.
So may we in this life
trust
to those elements
we have yet to see
or imagine,
and look for the true
shape of our own self,
by forming it well
to the great
intangibles about us.

      from The House of Belonging
      ©1996 Many Rivers Press

Written for the presentation of The Collier Trophy to The Boeing Company
marking the introduction of the new 777 passenger jet.

 Intangibles Dale Withrow

10-line Tuesday

is a blog to which I've signed up.  She delivers a new poem weekly.  This one resonated with me as I ponder the elements of a life, well-lived and what constitutes a happy and use-full existence.

even in paradise

Even in paradise, the demons appear.
I am writing this enveloped in the cushions of a lanai chair,
silently fretting about love. Inside, a friend is pushing her body faster
through a workout video, displeased with her persistent inches. Another
is flagellating herself for not devoting enough time to creativity.
Here, with nothing to do but rest, we do our best to seize the opportunity,
but the gentle palms and blissed-out sea are less parable than tease.
It is hard to sit still, stay neutral, expunge our own worst self-made enemies.
But perhaps we're here to feel the burn, confront our private bruise and batter,
and see each criticism for its truth: distracting, needless, idle chatter.

Walt Whitman

With the scent of lilacs featuring heavily on this warm day, it brought from my memory, this elegy written for President Lincoln.

WHEN lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d—and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring;
Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,	5
And thought of him I love. (enjoy the rest of it here.) The walk also garnered violets, many blisters and $.35.

and it's time for some maudlin lyrics...

The Word Before Good-Bye

Rod McKuen

What is the springtime after all?

Only the other side of fall.

Oh, if I could have

I'd have made you a sunny sky.

Hello's the word before good-bye.

Sometimes it rains, sometimes it shines

yet the things I want are seldom mine.

(The Sound of Music gazebo--Summer 2006)

How  much of summer can we hold

before we turn and find we're old?

The things our mirrors tell us are all lies

Hello's the word before good-bye.

Sometimes it's dark, sometimes it's fair

yet when I go home at night

nobody's there.

 (Sculpture Garden, Princeton 2009)

Perhaps the next wind that blows in

will bring you back to me again. 

Till then remembering just makes me want to cry,

Hello's the word before good-bye.

Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win

yet I can't forget what might have been. 

(you may thank me now for not linking up to him singing his poetry....) 

Ghazals

is a poetic form of which I hadn't heard until I picked up Robert Bly's newest volume.   I will be lazy and let someone else explain it.

B

Bach's B Minor Mass

The old Germans step inside Trinity Church.
The tenors, and sopranos, and altos and the horns
Say:  "Do not be troubled.  Death will come."

The basses reach down into their long coast
And give bits of dark bread to the poor, saying
"Eat, eat, in the shadow of Jethro's garden."

We all know about the old promise
That the orphans will be fed.  The oboes say,
"Oh, that promise is too wonderful for us!"

(looking towards Santa Cruz, Summer 09)

Don't worry about the sea.  The tidal wave that
Wipes out whole cities is merely the wood thrush
Lifting her wings to catch the morning sun.

We know that God gobbles up the Faithful.
The Harvesters on the sea floor are feeding
All those ruined by the depth of the sea.

Our oak will break and fall.  Even after their tree
Has splintered and fallen in the night, once
Dawn has come, the birds can do nothing but sing.

twists & turns & possiblities

Little did I know when I sat in that sunny chair and read the following poem three springs ago, that I would have gone to graduate school full-time and then returned to Seattle.  And little did I know when I sat in this room last week, that I would have two job offers fall into my week.  Stay tuned for details, while enjoy this Kenyon delight.

Afternoon in the House

It's quiet here.  The cats
sprawl, each
in a favored place.
The geranium leans this way
to see if I'm writing about her:
head all petals, brown
stalks, and those green fans.
So you see,
I am writing about you.

I turn on the radio.  Wrong.
Let's not have any noise
in this room, except
the sound of a voice reading a poem.
The cats request
The Meadow Mouse, by Theodore Roethke.

The house settles down on its haunches
for a doze.
I know you are with me, plants,
and cats--even so, I'm frightened,
sitting in the middle of perfect
possibility.

Sing a song...

Found six cents today, so this nursery rhyme has been zinging through my brain all day.  I promise to move away from rhyming poetry tomorrow.

Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,
Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?
The king was in his counting house counting out his money,
The queen was in the parlour eating bread and honey
The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose!

and the rhymes continue...

But with a poem and poet that are completely unknown to me.

Envoy
Ernest Dowson

(Vita summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam)*

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate;
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

(Life's brevity prevents us from lengthy aspiration.)

another chestnut

Can't believe that I've posted three (unhumorous) rhyming poems in a row.  But thought this was apropos with all things blossoming and blooming in my 'hood.  And it fits in with the examining of teeny delights and being present.  Yes, I typed that last phrase without any irony or gagging, and yes, these are camellias and not cherry trees--I used that photo yesterday.

Loveliest of Trees

A.E. Houseman

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland rise

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.