A YEAR IN POEMS 3/26/2021

 

“Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.”

Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death” 

Like many of her poems, this work is spare and elegiac. She provides a paradoxical mingling of movement and immobility, of time passing and frozen. Most notable is its matter-of-fact quality. There is no fear or grief, just a sense of the inevitable mixed with a slight tang of regret. The very antithesis of Romantic poetry.

A YEAR IN POEMS 3/25/2021

 

“O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing”

Percy Shelley, "Ode to the West Wind" 

More weather-related verse. This has a fascinating rhyme scheme (ABA BCB CDC etc.) and is justifiably considered one of the most elegant poems of its or any age.

The Western Wind was a powerful but ultimately benevolent force in most of Eurocentric human culture. It was a harvest wind, so stood for family and hearth as well as the promise of plenty. (see my post from 3/16/21)

A YEAR IN POEMS 3/24/2021

"Driving a cardboard automobile without a license

                           at the turn of the century
             my father ran into my mother
                                               on a fun-ride at Coney Island
                  having spied each other eating
                                       in a French boardinghouse nearby
And having decided right there and then
                                         that she was for him entirely
       he followed her into
                                      the playland of that evening
          where the headlong meeting
                                         of their ephemeral flesh on wheels
                    hurtled them forever together 

And I now in the back seat
                                          of their eternity
                                                     reaching out to embrace them"

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, "A Far Rockaway of the Heart, 2"

When Ferlinghetti died earlier this year, not only San Francisco but all of poetry lost its mad-cap voice. His poems were form-inspired, feisty, funny and grounded all at once - the voice of a lunatic cavorting under a spectacular and solemn moon.

NOTES FROM AN ISLAND Day 365 - 3/23/2021

A year ago, the mandate went out for Dallas to go indoors.

Masks came out and toilet paper disappeared as if by magic. Restaurants struggled to figure out how to provide take out for an entire city. A huge and desperate calm settled over the entire Metroplex.

Now, since even before our Governor’s rash removal of restrictions, the city has been burbling back to life in slow halting steps but with a remarkable sense of industry. Businesses found ways to work from home. Restaurants found ways to have their food delivered. People found new skills of cooking and artistry. Sometime along the way the country finally got a haircut. Vaccines began to be delivered and injected in astonishing number and now the end may, just may, be in sight.

There is much to mourn over the course of the year. More than 500,000 Americans died, far more than might have been lost had we been serious and committed to the temporary restrictions that our health experts recommended. Yes, temporary, until we could find the cure and the prevention as we have always done. Millions lost their jobs and their security. Scores of children struggled in the absence of their schools and playmates. People languished in loneliness and fear.

But there is much to celebrate in this year as well. National resilience, innovation and ingenuity for a few. The kindness of strangers has been on display in the form of food banks and charitable giving. Creativity has blossomed. Pet shelters have been emptied. The courage of medical staff and cleaners and grocery clerks and the millions of other essential providers has been a wellspring of pride.

It is curious that the pandemic has run the cycle of a year. I never understand why we begin the calendar in the full of winter, when nothing changes between a cold gray December and a cold gray January. The real start of the year is the spring: the greening of the trees, the budding of the flowers, the return of warmth and fecundity.

Last spring, we went inside; we all fled to our island of isolation. We watched the world brown then gray then wilt and crumble. But it never died because there were always seeds and roots beneath. And this spring, with a surge of new hope, those flowers that emerge will be brighter and heartier. We will be wiser and stronger, saddened by the memory of our loss but heartened by the knowledge of our survival.

A YEAR IN POEMS 3/22/2021

 

                “love between us is
                speech and breath. loving you is
                a long river running.”

Sonia Sanchez, “Haiku [for you]” 

Haiku has a tendency towards arrogance, if not pomposity. This one is gentle and tender, with a charming open-ended feel that lends it implied length and substance.

A YEAR IN POEMS 3/21/2021

 

“The birds were louder this morning,
raucous, oblivious, tweeting their teensy bird-brains out.
It scared me, until I remembered it’s Spring.
How do they know it? A stupid question.
Thank you birdies. I had forgotten how promise feels.”

Michael Ryan, “Spring (Again)”

A simple spring ode that mostly speaks for itself. In fact, he pointedly does not allow the poem to become deeper. Don’t ask questions, it reprimands; just enjoy the surge of hope.

A YEAR IN POEMS 3/20/2021

 

“The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.”

Earnest Lawrence Thayer, “Casey At the Bat”

(https://poets.org/poem/casey-bat)

With a baseball season about to begin and a beautiful spring sun shining in the sky, what better poem to celebrate. The storytelling in this latter-day ballad is exquisite, from the beautiful pastiche of language (“the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake”) to the elegant set-up of the dénouement. Not much art in this ditty, but oh, so much style!