Month: January 2019

{pf: on her gifts}

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January 18, 2019

5:12 am

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Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday

Cheers again for Mary Oliver, whose memory will always bless, and whose life was something to celebrate, and whose death is encouraging a whole bunch of new people in my Twitter timeline to read less frequently quoted examples of her poetry.

Something profoundly lovely is the intimate and personal connection that poet Mary Oliver made with the world. I was talking to a friend, who met the poet in person, and mentioned the respectful and gentle manner in which she listened as my friend related how a poem of Mary Oliver’s reminded her of a loved one who had died. Mary Oliver probably heard that sort of thing a great many times, but her active listening, which is reflected in her work, somehow helped to both share and diffuse the sting of grief.

Her poetry helps me listen – to myself, and to the world. Next to my journal and my Bible, beside The Chair Of Comfy Awesomeness is a thick collection of Oliver poems. And, on those frequent days when the heart is bowed or silent, and the exigencies of rigorous – or any – religious thought escape me, I read a handful of poems, and walk through wilds where the Divine is less inexplicable, and the simplicity gathers a focus which is clear-eyed and joyful, and I can once again draw breath, and consider the lilies – and then, the hummingbirds. This, too, is a gift.

WHISTLING SWANS

Do you bow your head when you pray or do you look

up into that blue space?
Take your choice, prayer fly from all directions.
And don’t worry about what language you use,
God no doubt understands them all.
Even when the swans are flying north and making
such a ruckus of noise, God is surely listening,

and understanding.
Rumi said, There is no proof of the soul.
But isn’t the return of spring and how it
springs up in our hearts a pretty good hint?
Yes, I know God’s silence never breaks, but is

that really a problem?
there are thousands of voices, after all.
And furthermore, don’t you imagine (I just suggest it)
that the swans know about as much as we do about

the whole business?
So listen to them and watch them, singing as they fly.
Take from it what you can.

Martinez 62

THE GIFT

Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
Earth and heaven both are still watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick,
has become slow.

So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful.
That the gift has been given.

~ both poems from FELICITY, by Mary Oliver ©2017, Penguin Books

Poetry Friday is hosted at Miss Rumphius’ house today, where there are doubtless numerous other people celebrating the gift that is the life and work of Mary Oliver. Whether you are snowed in, or leapfrogging puddles in this boundless wintry weather, may your weekend be touched by a breath of the Divine, and a touch of the untamed world which reminds you that you do, in fact, have only this one wild and precious life.

Pax.

{to begin with, the sweet grass}

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January 17, 2019

8:56 am

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Musings on Extemporanea

3.
The witchery of living
is my whole conversation
with you, my darlings.
All I can tell you is what I know.

Look and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.

It’s more than bones.
It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It’s more than the beating of the single heart.
It’s praising.
It’s giving until giving feels like receiving.
You have a life – just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe
still another.

4.

Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus,
the dancer, the potter,
to make me a begging bowl
which I believe
my soul needs.

And if I come to you,
to the door of your comfortable house
with unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails
will you put something into it?

I would like to take this chance.

I would like to give you this chance.

7.
What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.

Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.

That was many years ago.

Since then I have gone out from my confinements,

though with difficulty.

I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.

I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.

They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment

somehow or another).

And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.

I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.

I have become older and, in cherishing what I have learned,

I have become younger.

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?

Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.

Angels

You might see an angel anytime
and anywhere. Of course you have
to open your eyes to a kind of
second level, but it’s not really
hard. The whole business of
what’s reality and what isn’t has
never been solved and probably
never will be. So I don’t care to
be too definite about anything.
I have a lot of edges called Perhaps
and almost nothing you can call
Certainty. For myself, but not
for other people. That’s a place
you just can’t get into, not
entirely anyway, other people’s
heads.

I’ll just leave you with this.
I don’t care how many angels can
dance on the head of a pin. It’s
enough to know that for some people
they exist, and that they dance.

Rest in power, Mary Oliver, whose gifts will still reverberate.

{the miraculous is relative}

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January 11, 2019

10:04 am

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Essay Musings

“The miraculous is not extraordinary, but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread. Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air, and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold and empty stellar distances, will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine – which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes.”

{pf 2019: p7 jumps in}

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January 4, 2019

6:29 am

9 Comments on {pf 2019: p7 jumps in}

Musings on Extemporanea

welcome to another poetry friday!


We ended the year pretty quietly here, with an unexpected, but well-enjoyed little break. I’m glad to be back and participating in another year (YEAR ELEVEN!) of writing with Tricia Stohr-Hunt, Liz Garton Scanlon, Laura Purdie Salas, Andromeda Jazmon, Sara Lewis Holmes, and Kelly Ramsdell Siegel, and occasionally John Lewis. (Do I want to call him Little John, because he is Sara’s little brother, and having our own Little John makes us sound like a Robin Hood girl gang? Yes. Yes, I do. Will I restrain myself? …er, maybe?)

Our January poem is the ekphrastic, chosen by the one and only Tricia who gently prodded us out of holiday hibernation with a clarion call of “are we doing something for January or naw?” The ekphrastic is one of my favorite poetic forms for its combination of imagery and imagination. Examine an image, be inspired, and create a poem: what could be easier? (Wait, why are you laughing?)

The images we used come courtesy of Tricia via Bon à Tirer Prints & Monotypes: From the Center Street Studio Archives on view February 22 through May 11, 2018, in the Joel & Lila Harnett Museum of Art, at the University of Richmond in Virginia. I chose an image by the American artist Janine Wong called Color Equation 2. I dearly wish that I could see this in person. That’s the only potential drawback to the ekphrastic. Ah, well.

This image is a single impression print embellished with etching; aquatint, which is a copper plate etched with nitric acid; chine collé, which is a technique imported from China which uses a tissue-thin paper cut to the size of the printing plate and a larger, thicker support paper below to create a neat background effect; and hand-sewing on paper. Aside from learning a great deal about printing just from studying up on this piece, I examined it for other details and associations it could spark. The clustered circles reminded me of connections – first, between the artist and Paul Klee, or between mentors and learners, or parents and children… even families in a family tree. It reminded me of outlines and flowcharts. Of, weirdly, biology — something about this is kind of floral. (Eggs? Seeds? Puddles? Cells? DNA clusters?) It also made me think of Tech Boy, because it made me think of snooker. Billiards. Pool.

One very memorable day, Tech Boy pool sharked an entire group of relatives. It wasn’t a fun game, but a grim one, where various parties challenged him to play, in an attitude of “you’re not as good as you think you are.” After he methodically wiped the table with them, one after the other, we went home. It was a Pyrrhic victory, and he hasn’t played pool with them – or publicly, that I know of – again. And he used to be good – very, very good. Good enough to bet on.

In 2017, the number one star of the ranked trick shot world (yes, this is apparently a Thing?) was a man ESPN called “The Gentleman.” (He could join our girl gang. I’m just saying.) William “The Gentleman” DeYonker has perfectly recreated and invented thousands of trick shots with a singular focus that he says comes from seeing the table in his head in three dimensions. This is not the way the “neurotypical” thinker sees the world. The Gentleman sees a trick in the abstract, and instead of having to practice it endlessly, he …just does it. That ball will need to go there to make this ball do that to get these balls to go there. The geometry proofs run in his head: click, tap, spin, rebound. The Gentleman’s mother loves to see him play, and is his personal sponsor, and cheerleader. The lines between them are strong; she is with him, all the way.

Snooker in the UK is televised …and is about as interesting to me as watching golf (which is also televised in Scotland, go figure). But, things pick up when the commentators stops analyzing the players and follow the ball. The sports channels project possible paths the ball will travel over the green baize, forecasting a series of perfect angles for perfect outcomes. In today’s image, the lines the artist stitched in between and through the circles bring to mind possible paths for a ricocheting poeple. Tap, bump, spin, dunk.

There are lines between us — lines that tell us what connects us, strings that pull taut and outline a path, maps to show us how to claim the treasure of our best selves. As we trace those lines between ourselves and those we claim, may we be authentic – neurodivergent, maybe, weird, perhaps, but honest – following our course, action and reaction, cause and effect, straight and true.

Poetry Friday is hosted today at the blog of poet Sylvia Vardell. Please don’t forget to seek out the work of the other Poetry Sisters participating today – Laura, Tricia, Kelly, Sara, and Liz.

Additional Poetry News:

* The National Poetry Month poster contest for high school students is on!

* It’s a great year for poetry everywhere – tons more is in the public domain.

*I got a giggle out of this poetry written by people waiting for SF Muni buses. (Dad drove for them when I was wee.)

*NPR’s poetry recommendations for 2019.

*Leonard Cohen’s last poems released by his publisher – to a rather blunt review that says it’s for fans only. Which would be many of us.

*Officially, U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith’s podcast began this past fall, but as of this month, The Slowdown is on public radio stations! A perfect replacement for other poetry programs on public radio you may have missed. (Also, anyone want to buy a bookstore? As long as we’re replacing things, we need somewhere to put all those new poetry books, right?)