Bottled Joy: Poem of the Day

Everyone should read Walt Whitman much more often than any of us do! "Song of Myself" has lines  that I think of regularly, which says a lot since I often forget what I read. Whitman's poetry feels like bottled joy or lightning or the untiring exuberance of a child. Just slowly, slowly open the cap...and breathe...and revel...

From "Song of Myself" 

by Walt Whitman

#6 

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. 

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green 

     stuff woven. 

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, 

Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see 

    and remark, and say Whose? 

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. 

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, 

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, 

Growing among black folks as among white, 

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I 

     receive them the same. 

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. 

Tenderly will I use you curling grass, 

It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, 

It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, 

It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out 

     of their mothers' laps, 

And here you are the mothers' laps. 

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers, 

Darker than the colorless beards of old men, 

Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. 

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues, 

And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing. 

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, 

And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken 

     soon out of their laps. 

What do you think has become of the young and old men? 

And what do you think has become of the women and children? 

They are alive and well somewhere, 

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, 

And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the 

     end to arrest it, 

And ceas'd the moment life appeared. 

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, 

And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Absence: Poem of the Day

I found a tiny brochure of a poetry book at the library and was so delighted when it turned out to be some of the best poetry I've read by a current author in many years.

The "book" is Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey. I guess I am really out of the poetry scene since I didn't know that she was US Poet Laureate in 2012-13 and received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for this book. Having corrected my poetic failings, I had to make sure Trethewey was on your radar as well.

As I started reading this poem, I was thinking it was a simple little story--and then it sucker-punched me. Having lost my mom several months ago, I immediately related it to her, but then I thought of other people and different kinds of losses. This poem is a perfect little gem encapsulating the universal story of loss and absence--showing the point of view of the one grieving as well as the one who left. Pure beauty.

At Dusk

At first I think she is calling a child,
my neighbor, leaning through her doorway

from http://arthurevans.wordpress.com/category/musings/

at dusk, street lamps just starting to hum
the back drop of evening. Then I hear
the high-pitched wheedling we send out
to animals who know only sound, not
the meanings of our words--here here--
nor how they sometimes fall short.
In another yard, beyond my neighbor's
sight, the cat lifts her ears, turns first
toward the voice, then back
to the constellation of fireflies flickering
near her head. It's as if she can't decide
whether to leap over the low hedge,
the neat row of flowers, and bound
onto the porch, into the steady circle
of light, or stay where she is: luminous
possibility--all that would keep her
away from home--flitting before her.
I listen as my neighbor's voice trails off.
She's given up calling for now, left me
to imagine her inside the house waiting,
perhaps in a chair in front of the TV,
or walking around, doing small tasks;
left me to wonder that I too might lift
my voice, sure of someone out there,
send it over the lines of stitching here
to there, certain the sounds I make
are enough to call someone home.

Unexpected Joy After Long Darkness: Poem of the Day

My husband and I pieced together all the places we had been at the same time before we finally met. The first time we know that we were in the same room was a small group gathered for a poetry reading by Leslie Norris in 1991 or 1992.

Mr. Norris gave some excellent advice on that fateful day when I didn't meet my husband. He said that one should read a poem every day. While I have failed to follow that advice most days, today I can correct it. And so can you.

Thank you, Leslie Norris, for holding up your candle in the dark world.

The Pit Ponies
by Leslie Norris

They come like the ghosts of horses, shyly,

from http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17676749

To this summer field, this fresh green,
Which scares them.

They have been too long in the blind mine,
Their hooves have trodden only stones
And the soft, thick dust of fine coal,

And they do not understand the grass.
For over two years their sun
Has shone from an electric bulb

That has never set, and their walking
Has been along the one, monotonous
Track of pulled coal-trucks.

They have bunched their muscles against
The harness and pulled, and hauled.
But now they have come out of the underworld

And are set down in the sun and real air,
Which are strange to them. They are humble

And modest, their heads are downcast, they
Do not expect to see very far. But one
Is attempting a clumsy gallop. It is

Something he could do when he was very young,
When he was a little foal a long time ago
And he could run fleetly on his long foal's legs,
And almost he can remember this. And look,

One rolls on her back with joy in the clean grass!
And they all, awkwardly and hesitantly, like
Clumsy old men, begin to run, and the field

Is full of happy thunder. They toss their heads,
Their manes fly, they are galloping in freedom.
The ponies have come above ground, they are galloping!

UnBlog My Heart

Blogs are dumb. Seriously.

Who has time to read them, let alone write one? I've had a secret snarky thought for years: If you have enough time to do a blog, maybe you should get a job, because you have too much time on your hands.

Blogging implies a certain vanity, that what "the big I" have to say is so important that loads of random people will want to hear it. There are all these super-achievers out there who post their amazing home remodel before-and-afters...cooks who post their awesome recipes...mommy bloggers who brag on their kids. It kind of makes me sick.

So why am I doing this? Yeah, it's probably hypocritical. And--say it!--I should probably get a job. I know.

Like everything, it's complicated. I guess it comes down to: I have been feeling more and more like I have a voice, and I want to use it.

I don't flatter myself to think that anyone will care to read this. I am not doing it to attract 2-D friends or sponsors. I am thinking of this project as my open journal, a virtual scrapbook where I can celebrate my favorite things and ponder and muse and maybe even post my fabulous brownies recipe or record something great about my kids.

It's my room. I can do whatever I want in it. That's a really liberating thought in a kind of scary way.

It's me shouting in the forest, singing at the top of my lungs, listening for the echo.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable.  I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
This is me sounding my barbaric yawp. Thanks, Walt, for giving me the words to express how I feel as I embark upon these empty pages.