This week I have not slept a lot! But! The reason is not insomnia… no instead I have watched every minute of the DNC each night. There were so many amazing speakers and last night Madam Vice President was the capstone of the event. (If you missed it, you can watch it here!)
However, one beautiful poetess really captured my attention. (Okay, Tim Walz and his family did too… don’t we all just adore Gus Walz?)
In case you missed the glorious Amanda Gorman… I am sharing her new poem, This Sacred Scene. You can find the text of it here… I have been reading it over and over. But hearing and watching her recite it is a real treat.
Have a great weekend everyone! See you all back here on Monday with my word update!
Poetry has been a balm these days… and I have been reading more poetry than I usually do. Yet on Monday when I realized that this week was poetry round up week…well it was a bit of a surprise! And despite the volumes of poetry I have been immersed in I spent a few moments in angst about what I should share!
But on Tuesday I stumbled into a poem by Barbara Crooker in Poetry of Presence II… and the angst faded… this is poem I need to share today! (Thank you, dear Barbara!)
So here is my selection… I hope you find something delightful in it!
Queens
by Barbara Crooker
We are all just walking each other home.
— Ram Dass
I hadn’t taken the subway in fifty years, not since
I was an undergraduate, and I was nervous.
Back then, it was hard to navigate, as graffiti and peace
signs covered up the maps. But a friend from Queens
wanted to meet for lunch, so I took a deep breath
and set out, clutching the email she’d sent with directions.
Of course, now the maps are electronic, not readily
broken, and easy to read. But her station was confusing,
a maze of underground passages, and she’d warned me
I’d have to walk some distance if I went up the wrong
stairs. So I stood there, trying to align her text, match
her words to the nearby stores. An elderly East Asian
woman asked, You lost? She snatched the papers
from my hand. Okay. Follow me. Wielding her cane
like a weapon, she pushed pedestrians out of the way,
held it up like a banner as we crossed against the light
She pointed out the “good” fruit stands, wagged her fingers
at the “bad” ones, ignored the storefronts with elaborate
gold jewelry. She was my Italian grandmother, in a different skin.
When we reached my destination, she gave me back my papers.
Turn here. Friend lives there. And when I turned to thank her,
she was gone. Above, in the stunted city trees: the wind through
With all the chaos of the world right now, it feels like poetry is the only calm of my day. I have been circling back to familiar, comforting words from much loved poets.
Today, I thought you might like the same comfort from familiar words so today I am sharing Wendell Berry’s The Peace of Wild Things.
The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
It’s the third Thursday of the month and that means it’s time to join Bonny in gathering up some poetry to share with you all!
Thanks to the RWU selection this month, I discovered a new-to-me poet, Safiya Sinclair. I know several of you struggled with the poem she shared in How to Say Babylon but maybe this poem of hers will speak to you. At least I hope it will speak to you as it did to me!
The Ragged and the Beautiful
by Safiya Sinclair
Doubt is a storming bull, crashing through
the blue-wide windows of myself. Here in the heart
of my heart where it never stops raining,
I am an outsider looking in. But in the garden
of my good days, no body is wrong. Here every
flower grows ragged and sideways and always
beautiful. We bloom with the outcasts,
our soon-to-be sunlit, we dreamers. We are strange
and unbelonging. Yes. We are just enough
of ourselves to catch the wind in our feathers,
and fly so perfectly away.
I had thought of using a different poem today but after spending yesterday morning in my garden, doing a bit of weeding… with my new hearing aids in and on… the sounds of the bees was crazy. Crazy!! And all I could think of was this poem by Lucy Adkins that I read in April.
And so… I am sharing it with you all today with the hopes that the next time you are outside and hear the bees you will think of this poem… with delight!
Instructions to the Worker Bee
by Lucy Adkins
Remember your first duty—
seeking out beauty in the world
and going within.
There is rapture in a field of clover—
purple and blue petals,
throat of honeysuckle achingly open;
and you must be drunk with love
for salvia, monarda, Marvel of Peru,
all the glories of this world.
It’s not just about pollen or nectar,
the honey that eventually coms,
but the tingle of leg hair
against the petal, against pistil and stamen,
the vault of each flower opening.
Learn dandelion,
learn lantana, red-lipped astilbe,
each with its own deliciousness.
Take what you need
and remember where it is in the field.
Then go back and go back
and go back again.
Every April I like to add a new book to my Poetry Library… and this year, dear Ada Limón had the perfect collection with perfect timing! You Are Here Poetry in the Natural World was published April 2! I have been reading through it with delight! It is full of beautiful poems!
The poem I have selected for you to tuck away in your pocket is one written by Ilya Kaminsky, a Ukrainian-American poet. The poem might change the way you look at rain… it certainly did for me! (And I needed a bit of a rain-itude adjustment with the wet April we have had!)
