A YEAR IN POEMS 5/27/2021

 

“Up with me! Up with me into the clouds!
                For thy song, Lark, is strong;
Up with me, up with me into the clouds!
                Singing, singing,
With clouds the sky about thee ringing,
                Lift me, guide me till I find
That spot which seem so to thy mind.”

Wordsworth, “To a Sky-lark” 

I have always admired Wordsworth’s attempt to achieve the lightness of a Keats poem in this ode. He tries desperately to rise weightless, and fails boldly, like an elephant thinking it is an eagle. 

(Parenthetically, I think skylarks have so much poetic press just because of their name. In nature, they are hardly the most ethereal or lofty of birds.)

A YEAR IN POEMS 5/24/2021

 

“At the time that turned the heat of the earth,
At the time when the heavens turned and changed,
At the time when the light of the sun was subdued
To cause light to break forth,
At the time of the night of Makalii (winter)
Then began the slime which established the earth,
The source of deepest darkness.
Of the depth of darkness, of the depth of darkness,
Of the darkness of the sun, in the depth of night,
                                It is night,
                                So was night born”

Queen Lili’uokalani, “Kumulipo”  

A beautiful, stirring version of the Hawai’ian creation story, made more full of pathos by the historical reality of Queen Lili’uokalani’s personal tragedy. The web posting has the poem in native Hawai'ian and it is even more haunting with it's mesmeric repeated sounds, likes the waves crashing on the ocean shore.

ON A DEAD TREE

 

 

“A draft brings sway to
Brittle leaves,
Curled limbs of gray
Death-dancing in its light breath:
Ribs exposed, an umbrella
Broken reaching for the canopy.

Small buds glistened once on
Delicate supple fingers
Cavorting with the green and red surround:
The whisper of life-
Shuffling, striving for the
Blue-polished sky.

Winter seized the playful boughs
Too sudden to elude
Too swift to understand:
The hollow, from tip
To root, dancing now with
The memory of life.”

K Mankin, “On a Dead Tree”:

Yesterday, arborists removed the sweet Japanese Maple from beneath my study window. This poem is about the illusion of permanence.

A YEAR IN POEMS 5/20/2021

 

“Ah, Fans, let not the Quarry but the Chase
       Be that to which most fondly we aspire!
For us not Stake, but Game; not Goal, but Race—
      THIS is the end of every fan’s desire.”

Franklin P Adams, “A Ballad of Baseball Burdens”

    I cheated on this one. Started in the last stanza to get the gist and substance. The whole is a wonderful litany of baseball names and sounds of times past by a newspaper columnist (who says columns are not a form of poetry?).  I love the mock-ballad structure and tone of this piece and the way Adams incorporates the sounds of fandom (“Else you shall feel the brunt of fandom’s ire/ Biff, bang it, clout it, hit it on the knob”).

A YEAR IN POEMS 5/20/2021

 

“Come, my Celia, let us prove,
While we can, the sports of love;
Time will not be ours forever;
He at length our good will sever.”

Ben Jonson “Song to Celia” 

Not his most famous Song to Celia, but an interesting and somewhat bleak version, redolent with whispers of mortality. The opening echoes Marlowe’s “Passionate Shepherd” to a degree that you wonder if this poem is in part a response to Marlowe’s death.

A YEAR IN POEMS 5/18/2021

 

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”

I think of this poem as a counter balance to Fern Hill, where at the end, the poet sleeps and wakes to find his childhood has fled. This is the older and wiser poet, unwilling to be passive any longer.

 

A YEAR IN POEMS 5/17/2021

 

“The unconsecrated foe entered my courts,
Placed his unwashed hands upon me,
And caused me to tremble.
Putting forth his hand
He smote me with fear.”

Babylonian Cuneiform, “Ishtar” (transl by Lewis Spence)

Translation of ancient texts, especially in languages unknown, is a bit of an if-you-say-so experience. It is also an essay in desire; the desire to find the fluency in some dead language to understand their thoughts, their imagery, and their poetic sense.