by Kat | May 1, 2018 | General, In This Moment
Because Poetry Month should be longer than a month, I am going to keep it going here at Casa del KatKnits and share with you all another poem from Derek Walcott.
The Rainy Season
For Stephanos and Heather
It is coming with the first drops mottling the hot cement,
the patters budding in the pool, with a horizon
as wide and refreshing as the rain-veiled Georgics,
with the upward swoop of the dove, with the heron
quickening its gawky stride; watch a sail
hide her face in the mist and the barred sun shrivel
into gathering cumuli, those huge clouds
trawling gauze skirts of rain as camera-flashes
of lightning record the rattling thunder
and the lances of drizzle start marching
But nothing can equal
the surge of another’s presence, the separately beloved
whose reign is the rain’s, whose weather is the fragrant darkness
of the parlor, in the kitchen, the lightning’s cutlery.
But O
when the bursting storm rattles the sky’s ceiling
and her body draws closer as a vessel warping
into you, her port, her aisle, and she gently rocks,
her ribs brushing yours, O, on your wedding day
may the worried banners of cirrus fade as the storm moves away.
P.S. Apparently, Apple thinks poetry is pretty great too: “Poetry Is Magic: Poems make your day better. Here’s proof.” Yes, I downloaded a poetry app or two!
by Kat | Apr 24, 2018 | General, In This Moment
As National Poetry Month draws to a close, I thought I would share a poem from a newly discovered poet (Thanks, Kym!).
After reading a poem by Derek Walcott on Kym’s blog earlier this month, I check out an anthology of Derek’s poetry from the library and have been reading a poem or two a day during the month. I have enjoyed his works tremendously. He has given me a different perspective to look at things, which is always a very good thing.
Forty Acres
by Derek Walcott
to Barack Obama
Out of the turmoil emerges one emblem, an engraving –
a young Negro at dawn in straw hat and overalls,
an emblem of impossible prophecy: a crowd
dividing like the furrow which a mule has plowed,
parting for their president; a field of snow-flecked cotton
forty acres wide, of crows with predictable omens
that the young plowman ignores for his unforgotten
cotton-haired ancestors, while lined on one branch are a tense
court of bespectacled owls and, on the field’s receding rim
is a gesticulating scarecrow stamping with rage at him
while the small plow continues on this lined page
beyond the moaning ground, the lynching tree, the tornado’s black vengeance,
and the young plowman feels the change in his veins, heart, muscles, tendons,
till the field lies open like a flag as dawn’s sure
light streaks the field and furrows wait for the sower.
by Kat | Apr 17, 2018 | General, In This Moment
I can guarantee it is snowing. These fragile blossoms that bobbed gently in the winds, today bravely hold snow. Winter and Spring continue to battle, and Spring’s weekend victory has been usurped by a wintry blast.
But, perhaps the best balm is a bit of poetry:
Spring Snow
By Richard Greene
Wet snow coats
twig, branch and bud.
Against the still black street
the waning season
limns its last words
in bold calligraphy.
Today I am profoundly thankful for hot coffee, wooly sweaters, and no pressing need to leave the house.
by Kat | Apr 12, 2018 | General, Words
April is National Poetry Month and today I am sharing with you three poems that I frequently think of or read. Poems that were introduced to me by my grandfather, poems I discovered on my own, and poems that I discovered through you…
Poem One:
Purple Martins by Carl Sandburg
If we were such and so, the same as these,
maybe we too would be slingers and sliders,
tumbling half over the water mirrors,
tumbling half over at the horse heads of the sun,
tumbling our purple numbers.
Twirl on, you and your satin blue.
Be water birds, be air birds.
Be these purple tumblers you are.
Dip and get away
From loops into slip-knots,
Write your own ciphers and figure eights.
It is your wooded island here in Lincoln park.
Everybody knows this belongs to you.
Five fat geese
Eat grass on a sod bank
And never count your slinging ciphers,
your sliding figure eights,
A man on a green paint iron bench,
Slouches his feet and sniffs in a book,
And looks at you and your loops and slip-knots,
And looks at you and your sheaths of satin blue,
And slouches again and sniffs in the book,
And mumbles: It is an idle and a doctrinaire exploit.
Go on tumbling half over in the water mirrors.
Go on tumbling half over at the horse heads of the sun.
Be water birds, be air birds.
Be these purple tumblers you are.
Poem Two:
Ode To Ironing by Pablo Neruda
Poetry is white:
it comes from water swathed in drops,
it wrinkles and gathers,
this planet’s skin has to spread out,
the sea’s whiteness has to be ironed out,
and the hands keep moving,
the sacred surfaces get smoothed,
and things are done this way:
the hands make the world every day,
fire conjoins with steel,
linen, canvas, and cotton arrive
from the scuffles in the laundries,
and from light a dove is born:
chastity returns out of the foam.
Poem Three:
The Journey by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.
And, there you have my Three on Thursday contribution… want to see more? Head on over to Carole’s!
by Kat | Feb 13, 2018 | General, In This Moment
Perfect pink petals
An unexpected surprise
From my Valentine
