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!

13 Comments

Sarah on April 12, 2018 at 9:09 AM

Always nice to start off the day with a bit of poetry!
Bonny on April 12, 2018 at 9:17 AM

Only Pablo Neruda can make ironing poetic! Thanks for sharing these thoughtful poems.
VIcki on April 12, 2018 at 9:21 AM

Lovely. Thank you for sharing these!
Honore´ on April 12, 2018 at 9:23 AM

Echoing Sarah; my thought, precisely! Pablo Neruda’s poem called to my mind an illustration I clipped from a magazine of a woman, ironing board set up on the deck of her home, on the ocean’s beach, *ironing!* If one must, that’s the way to do it!

Cheers~
Margene on April 12, 2018 at 10:11 AM

I love all three choices. My father loved Carl Sandburg, but I haven’t read this poem before. Thank you!
Carole on April 12, 2018 at 10:56 AM

A perfect tribute to Poetry Month!
Jeannie Gray on April 12, 2018 at 11:05 AM

Great poems! I’d never read any of them before.
Patty on April 12, 2018 at 1:20 PM

Thank-you Kat!
sprite on April 12, 2018 at 3:33 PM

Lovely!
Kwizgiver on April 12, 2018 at 4:56 PM

This made me so happy today! 😀
Kym on April 12, 2018 at 5:37 PM

Three wonderful poems!
🙂
Jane on April 12, 2018 at 8:11 PM

Lovely poems. I especially like the Purple Martins by Carl Sandburg. Let’s celebrate Poetry Month.
Mary on April 13, 2018 at 3:30 PM

Wonderful, Kat – thank you! I don’t remember studying poetry in school, and never really “got it” until Katie (thanks to several fantastic high school English teachers) turned me on to it in 2006. Mind. Blown. and Mary Oliver is still one of my very favorites (though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice 🙂