Happy New Year: Burning 2015

This poem...it speaks to me. I copied it, by hand, into my little poetry notebook yesterday. And it was a struggle. Not because it was hard to use good penmanship, but rather because it stirs up so many emotions. Leaving a year behind is often celebrated. Resolutions and confetti stuffed down our throats and thrown in our faces. There is so much more to it than that.

I have a friend. Well, she's more than a friend. And she recently moved away. Far away. I came within an angstrom of giving her this as a going away present. But I chickened out. I give it to you, instead, with hopes that it finds its way to her.

Burning the Old Year

BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.   

Notes friends tied to the doorknob,   

transparent scarlet paper,

sizzle like moth wings,

marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,   

lists of vegetables, partial poems.   

Orange swirling flame of days,   

so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,   

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.   

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,   

only the things I didn’t do   

crackle after the blazing dies.

May your burnings be bright. And what's left after the blaze be your charge into a new year.

Poetry Friday: For the Children

I must say, it's been an amazing summer. For many reasons. Chief amongst them, probably the fact that I've spent so many great moments with my children. I don't reflect too often on the metaphysical aspects of parenthood. What am I leaving them with? What will they remember? Just keep them happy, make memories, and teach them to be good people...those are my tenets, I suppose. And I'm ok with that.

Making memories with the kids--Real Madrid v. Manchester United @ Michigan Stadium

I found a poem today by Gary Oliver and it resonates on many levels, but it definitely speaks to what I'd like my children to be able to say they learned from me someday. Oliver says it better than me, so I'll get to the poem...

"For the Children"
By Gary Oliver

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us,
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

Read the rest of the poem (the ending's worth it!!!) at The Writer's Almanac. If you like it as much as I do, you'll probably find yourself reading it several times.

Glad to make a return to Poetry Friday, which today is being rounded up at A Year of Reading. Check out all the other amazing posts being shared there today.

Reflections on a Gift

So, for reasons too numerous to list right now, I'm making some very strong efforts toward discovering happiness in life. They're going exceptionally well but, like anything in the realm of self-improvement, only time will tell. I've got plenty of cause to feel confident, though.

One thing I'm attempting to do is bring things into my life that make me happy. Poetry has always been one of these things, so it's making a return to my life rather than a debut.

It's amazing how turning to poetry can help one navigate pretty much any emotion in existence. Whether it's coping with loss, celebrating a birth, or the happiness and joys of every day life. There's a poem out there for it all.

As I find myself excited by the possibilities that life has to offer for the first time in a long time, I want to share a poem that brought me happiness today.

"Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle Received from a Friend Called Felicity"
By John Tobias

During that summer
When unicorns were still possible;
When the purpose of knees
Was to be skinned;
When shiny horse chestnuts
    (Hollowed out
    Fitted with straws
    Crammed with tobacco
    Stolen from butts
    In family ashtrays)
Were puffed in green lizard silence
While straddling thick branches
Far above and away
From the softening effects
Of civilization;

During that summer--
Which may never have been at all;
But which has become more real
Than the one that was--
Watermelons ruled.

Thick imperial slices
Melting frigidly on sun-parched tongues
Dribbling from chins;
Leaving the best part,
The black bullet seeds,
To be spit out in rapid fire
Against the wall
Against the wind
Against each other;

And when the ammunition was spent,
There was always another bite:
It was a summer of limitless bites,
Of hungers quickly felt
And quickly forgotten
With the next careless gorging.

The bites are fewer now.
Each one is savored lingeringly,
Swallowed reluctantly.

But in a jar put up by Felicity,
The summer which maybe never was
Has been captured and preserved.
And when we unscrew the lid
And slice off a piece
And let it linger on our tongue:
Unicorns become possible again.

----

Does this make you happy, too? Something about the innocence and nostalgia. Or the imagery. Or the idea of preserving our youth. And it has a sweet ending, which you know I love. It also reminds me of one of my other all-time-favorites by Gary Soto.

I apologize for publishing this poem in its entirety. I try to be a responsible digital citizen when it comes to copyright. May the poetry gods absolve me of this sin.

So here's to happiness. And poetry. And life. I'll be back soon with more to share.

photo credit: Wendy Longo photography via photopin cc

The Art of Description

I'm amazed at the ways poets can describe things. And I love finding poets I've never heard of. I had a poem stashed in my email that fits both of these and I rediscovered it today.

Because I cannot remember my first kiss

  by Roger Bonair-Agard

but I remember sitting alone on the brown
couch in my grandmother’s living room,
couch whose cushion covers were of velvet
and the color of dark rust, or dried blood
—and sewn by the tailor from up the block,
the same one who made me my first light blue
suit two years earlier 
             And I sat there running my hands back 
             and forth
over the short smooth hairs of the fabric
and understanding what touch meant
for the first time—not touch, the word,
as in don’t touch the hot stove or don’t
touch your grandfather’s hats but touch
like Tom Jones was singing it right then
on the television, with a magic that began
in his hips, swiveled the word and pushed
it out through his throat into some concert
hall somewhere as a two-syllabled sprite,
so that women moaned syllables back in return.

I just love the word choice and the way he describes sitting on a couch. What I thing to describe! And I have a thing for poems whose title serves as the first line. Is that weird? Ah, poetry...

Please check out the rest of this gem at Poets.org. And definitely check out the Poetry Friday round-up at Mainely Write.

photo credit: foka kytutr via photopin cc

Poetry Friday: The Kick of Creation

I need to get back to blogging here. My lay-off needs to end. I think I can do it. I'll start with today.

A friend shared this quote with me as we caught up over a beer recently. It's by Kurt Vonnegut:

Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow - whether there is a market for it or not! The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don't show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward.

I think I'll start doing that. And start blogging here more. I begin with sharing an amazing poem that came to my inbox this morning. "Time" by Chris Martin:

Time

by Chris Martin

All that happens happens

in the hollow 

mouth

open mid-vow

knowing 

only song will do

what an empty cave needs

done, drone

that seeds to fill

one space and then that

space's space, what 

are we made 

of if 

not chants.

Sun slumping up

the stucco, cat chewing

her tail clean, nimbi

darkening the fallen

leaves leatherlike, I make

voice, voice, voice, voices

like a fist

on thinking's door

a fistula 

wrapping abstraction

and binding it to what, morning

sickness, the lathed light

now flying through branches

made sinister

by season, a crook

in the amygdala's grey

ministry and all 

I see is a circling murder

above the antenna

that replaced the weathervane.

Read the rest of the poem here. And check out the Poetry Friday roundup at Anastasia's poetry blog.

Poetry Friday: There's an App For That

Confession time: I just got my first smartphone. Welcome to the 21st Century, right? Yes, it was about time. And yes, it didn't take me long to realize how very, very sweet having a smartphone is. Definitely embarrassed to admit how much I love it.

One of the first apps I downloaded was from The Poetry Foundation, a great app with two "wheels" to "spin". The wheels are marked with categories: humor, joy, compassion, youth, etc.   The wheels match up to create a list of poems that match the combination: Poems about Humor and Youth, Love and Joy, etc. Brilliant!

You can also search for poems by poet, poem title, subject, and mood. AND you can star your favorites for future reference. Also brilliant. If you're a smartphone user and a poetry lover, you've got to get this. Oh, and did I mention that it's free!?!? Again...brilliant.

With the app, I've found some gems that I probably wouldn't have discovered otherwise. Like this one:

Poem for Haruko

By June Jordan

I never thought I’d keep a record of my pain

or happiness

like candles lighting the entire soft lace

of the air

around the full length of your hair/a shower

organized by God

in brown and auburn

undulations luminous like particles

of flame

 

But now I do

retrieve an afternoon of apricots

and water interspersed with cigarettes

and sand and rocks

we walked across:

                        How easily you held

my hand

beside the low tide

of the world

Read the rest of the poem here, or find it on the app you just downloaded! Does it make

you as happy as it makes me that the ending of it contains the phrase: "infinite

tergiversations?"

Check out how to get the Poetry Foundation Mobile app for your smartphone or tablet by clicking here.  

And be sure to check out this week's Poetry Friday roundup at No Water River, a pretty nifty blog that I'm going to have to start following.

Poetry Friday: From the Hip

Sometimes, you need a plan. You've gotta think about things before you do them. Figure out what to do first, next, and last. Obsess over the details. Try to get it all right. Set yourself up to ensure success. Whether it's a lesson you're teaching, a vacation you're planning, or figuring out how to ask somebody out. Sometimes you need a plan.

And then there's those other times. The times when you just have to go for it and say "forget about a plan."

I'd love to be more like the latter, but I have to admit that it's the former that tends to describe my M.O. most of the time.

What's my point? Not sure. But today I'm picking the first poem I see to share with you. Rebellious, I know. But you have to start somewhere.

So here's the first one I found when I did some poetry hunting today, and it's by a poet I'm not all familiar with beyond the name, Willa Cather.

L'Envoi

by Willa Cather

Where are the loves that we have loved before
When once we are alone, and shut the door ?
No matter whose the arms that held me fast,
The arms of Darkness hold me at the last.
No matter down what primrose path I tend,
I kiss the lips of Silence in the end.
No matter on what heart I found delight,
I come again unto the breast of Night.
No matter when or how love did befall,
'Tis Loneliness that loves me best of all,
And in the end she claims me, and I know
That she will stay, though all the rest may go.

Read the rest of this poem here. Not the most uplifting choice, but it's beautifully written, and that brings me joy. I wonder how long it took to write it. How much planning and thought went into it? How many drafts? Does great poetry ever come from the hip? Maybe in the early stages, when the idea first forms? Maybe someday I'll figure it out. Until then, be sure to enjoy the rest of the Poetry Friday offerings courtesy of today's host Read, Write, Howl.