A Gem of Halcyon Ray

2010-01-28T19:53:00.000-08:00

What he's asking is, will you keep all the sadness out?

The end, forever, period.

When you clawed up my crown,
jumbled in the bones of former kings,
I promised
we would sleep in a pile, every night
warm snuffles and sighs
buried in nuzzled fur.

I pull my ears up. We dance,
you scrape your heart
around my name. White seeds like blossoms

furrow, tiny hooks,

others soar tangled cedar.

All forts seem like a good idea.
We want wooden flutes, rough drums,

sand scruffed under nails and skin,
the better to feel our rub.

When icy light found me
grey beneath broken twigs,
your clumsy grief caved
and howled holes in the trees.
We slept in the forest that night.

I had to go. After all, I only bite
and teeth fall out and grow again.

You said you'd eat me up,
you love me so. I eat bread and milk

with clear paws. It's ages til the sun burns dark.

How do I make everyone OK?

Huts fall down. We build again.

Ghazal for Lars

A thaw came early - yet still Wisconsin winter.
Re-frozen slush hedges garage house, second winter.

So much wool. So many sweaters, blue and green,
you could cocoon forever in thick winter.

Some people don't like to be hugged. Shield your skin
from burn of hands with down-stuffed coats of winter.

None of this is easy. Who knew you could be so lonely
you forget what day it is. And hearts don't winter well.

At least artificial flowers never die. This far north,
you have to choose, to bury deep or melt in winter.

Poetry. Who needs it?

2009-06-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

"The enduring human need for poetry . . . its ancient task of teaching and consoling humanity."

So said Dana Gioia in his essay on September 11. The human need for poetry. Why do we need it? What does it give us? The first thing I thought of was a former voice teacher; he was trying to get us, his wooden freshmen students, to understand our motivation for breaking out into song. Why not just speak the words? he asked. We were intimidated freshmen and had no answer. He said we sing when words will no longer adequately express our situation, when the emotion or situation is so strong that mere everyday conversational prose just won't handle it. Or something like that. Basically, when words fail, we sing.

And I think the same is true of poems. Lines of poetry come to us when cliches fail and everything we try to say sounds like something on a Hallmark card. There's a certain relief in finding words that perfectly fit the situation. Strangely enough, the place I see this relief the most is on facebook - you know, the teenage girls who post those Taylor Swift song lyrics to express the anguish of unrequited puppy love or how alone in the world they are (I was one of those girls once. Only my medium was xanga. I blush). And there's something to it. It's a lot more satisfying to type some poignant lyrics into that little box than to simply post "Anna is feeling down."

And that's the need poetry fills in our lives - it expresses what we cannot express; it comes the closest to articulating what is beyond words.

For example, have you ever lost someone you loved, but life is too busy to grieve and the tears won't come but then they do and you're glad, actually glad, to be crying? Well. Wendell Berry does.

Early in the morning, walking

in a garden in Vancouver

three thousand miles from your grave,

the sky dripping, song

sparrows singing in the borders,

I come suddenly upon

a Japanese dogwood, a tree

you loved, bowed down with bloom.

By what blessedness do I weep?

-From Sabbath Poems

Openings: a rant

2009-06-25T13:14:00.000-07:00

This post is for all those people who hate poetry because of a really bad English teacher who insisted on a certain reading. As in, you were dead-wrong if you didn't say exactly what Mrs. Grimkin wanted. And she wore odd-smelling hair nets and you're still bitter about 10th grade.

I want you to know: I am so sorry (if it makes you feel better, English has gone the opposite direction now. Did you know there are Marxist overtones in "The Raven"? Yeah, I didn't either). I used to hate poems too, and it wasn't even on account of a horrible teacher. I just plain didn't understand the darn things. Ugh. Boy, did I hate poetry. Until.

Until, until, until.

I had eleventh grade English with Mr. C. He gave us a list of poets, and our assignment was to go immerse ourself in the work of one of them and then: write a poem. In the poet's style. To make it worse? They were contemporary poets. My sixteen year old self moped around in sullen anguish over this poem thing. I picked up a book by Jane Kenyon and scribbled down some lines. And you know what? My teacher liked it (or acted like he did . . .) and suddenly, I was in love with poem-writing and reading, and all because of a highly generous and encouraging teacher.

My main point is that I fell in deep deep love with poetry because my teacher was more concerned that we enjoy it than that we figure out what everything meant. It wasn't "Ok, read the poem and figure out what it means," it was "Read the poem and listen to the way it sounds, notice the images, what the poem is doing." And suddenly poetry was a source of pleasure, not pain.

All that to say: we - you and I, American readers - have been sinned against mightily, from two fronts. The first is the horde of aforementioned Mrs. Grimkins who approached poems as problems to be solved, not a work to be appreciated. The second are the poets of academia who gave up trying to communicate with the American public. Bad academics! Not that they didn't do wonderful stuff, now. But poetry acquired this esoteric, ivory tower, unimportant to real life reputation.

It wasn't always this way. Wordsworth and Byron were immensely popular, and everyone read Tennyson and Longfellow. And remember Robert Frost?

So, in the deep conviction that poetry should be read by all types of people, read this poem by Billy Collins while I step down off my soapbox.

Today

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,

so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw

open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,

indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths

and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight

that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight

on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants

from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,

holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,

well, today is just that kind of day.

Conflict: resolving

2008-10-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

I wrote this poem for Mr. Carter's Amazing Poetry Class this summer. I think the idea was sparked by Elizabeth Bishop's "Argument," which I wrote a paper on in the spring and pretty much adored. Relationships tend to be much stronger once they weather a few storms, but there's always a risk involved with fights, especially the first one. But who doesn't love conflict resolution?

First Fight  

It happened on a Wednesday morning.

I brushed the breakfast crumbs away 

and heard your knock – you handed me

 my book (a Chesterton, I think),  

and sat down at the table. 

I poured us Stumptown coffee 

while we talked of books, 

the morning sky, your grinding job,

our coming weekend trip. I remember very 

clearly what you said then, that dulled 

the dreamer’s shine I’d painted

 over the trip, and shattered morning's peace. 

 I fought back, of course, surprised 

by the sudden poison of my own bitter jabs. 

I wept and ran outside, laid my hands and cheek against 

the ivy-spotted brick of my apartment wall.

  how long I stood there, pressed against

 the roughened clay, whispering “I’m sorry” 

into a tiny wasp-nest hole, as if  you could hear me

through the pile of earth and wood.  

How long I stood there, before you came 

and leaned against the wall beside me.

 We did not speak; not even

 when your hand found mine beneath the ivy.  

Later, we went inside, made more coffee, 

sipped sweet reconciliation from a cup.

 But I remember most the feel of your fingers 

in mine, warm and strong

 beneath the thick and waxy emerald of the leaves.

Ginger Ice

2008-10-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

I'll go ahead and admit I love this poem. Not because I think it's great or anything, I just love it, like you love your child even if they have an extra eye or something.

Ginger Ice (in response to Vettriano's Singing Butler)

That night in Buenos Aires,

they danced under the dome

of umbrellas and sang

a requiem for star

fish, washed up on the sand,

their only shroud a shadow

from the couple's liquid waltz.

The maid cast down her eyes,

tucked a tendril in her cap,

and the couple closer swayed -

his hand pressed on her back,

she nudged his shoulder with her chin -

the butler lost his bowler, chased it

Charlie Chaplin style

until it reached the surf

and disappeared

into the labyrinth of waves.

He tossed a log of driftwood

and retraced his sandy tracks.

The couple never noticed,

not even when the wind

whipped his tails, her cherry dress,

and spun confetti from the sand.

Later, in the plaza,

they spooned ginger ices

by the fountain

(the maid and butler yawning

on the balustrade).

She kissed his cheek, left a syrupy ring.