poetry pause: the orchard:: mary oliver

 

stock photo 

The Orchard

I have dreamed
of accomplishment.

I have fed

ambition.

I have traded

nights of sleep

for a length of work. 

Lo, and I have discovered

how soft bloom

turns to green fruit

which turns to sweet fruit.

Lo, and I have discovered

all wins blow cold

at last,

and the leaves,

so pretty, so many,

vanish

in the great, black

packet of time,

in the great, black

packet of ambition, 

and the ripeness

of the apple 

is its downfall. 

mary oliver

poetry pause: bloodbirth :: audre lorde

My habit of reading a poem a day has been so emotionally transformative. 

stock photo: autumn leaves + bench

Bloodbirth

That which is inside of me screaming

beating about for exit or entry

names the wind, wanting winds' voice

wanting winds' power

it is not my heart

and I am trying to tell this 

without art or embellishment

with bits of me flying out in all directions

screams memories old pieces of flesh

struck off like dry bark

from a felled tree, bearing 

up or out

holding or bring forth

child or demon

is this birth or exorcism or

the beginning machinery of myself

outlining recalling

my father's business- what I must be

about- my own business

minding.

Shall I split

or be cut down

by a word's complexion or the lack of 

it

and from what direction will the opening be made

to show the true face of me

lying exposed and together 

my children your children their

children

bent on our conjugating business

-Audre Lorde

source: NYTimes

Born: February 18, 1934, Harlem, New York, NY

Died: November 17, 1992 (age 58 years), Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands

Intersectional feminist, poet, scholar, professor, civil rights activist

poety pause: Of Goodness :: mary oliver

 

© Rachel Giese Brown

Of Goodness

How good

that the clouds travel, as they do,

like the long dresses of the angels

of our imagination,

or gather in storm masses, then break

with their gifts of replenishment,

and how good

that the trees shelter the patient birds

in their thick leaves,

and how good that in the field

the next morning

red bird frolics again, his throat full of song,

and how good

that the dark ponds, refreshed,

are holding the white cups of the lilies

so that each is an eye that can look upward,

and how good that the little blue-winged teal

comes paddling among them, as cheerful as ever,

and so on, and so on.

-Mary Oliver

poetry pause:: audre lorde: black unicorn

I love poetry and Audre Lorde will be my focus of the year. I read and reread this poem several times a week.

source: disability history snapshots

The Black Unicorn

The black unicorn is greedy.

The black unicorn is impatient.

The black unicorn was mistaken

for a shadow

or symbol

and taken

through a cold country

where mist painted mockeries

of my fury.

It is not on her lap where the horn rests

but deep in her moonpit

growing.

The black unicorn is restless

the black unicorn is unrelenting

the black unicorn is not

free. 

poetry pause :: humility : mary oliver

 

stock photo: simon berger

Humility

Poems arrive ready to begin.
      Poets are only the transportation.

Mary Oliver

10: poetry: shakespeare :: that time of year thou mayst in me behold :: pause

I am always looking for small, easily digestible ways to engage with Shakepeare's work. One of my favorite ways is to watch his plays done by theater company that have been uploaded to YouTube, listening to audio dramas, and reading and re-reading his sonnets.

I love this sonnet for the end of the year.  

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Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

-William Shakespeare

06: poetry pause : the peace of wild things :: wendell berry

This poem speaks to deeply to what this time of year stirs up in my heart and soul. I read and re-read it constantly. 

stockphoto sourced online

The Peace of Wild Things

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.

-Wendell Berry

01: snow night: mary oliver :: poetry pause : midnight edition

I’m a good friend of the late night and early morning.

When I can’t figure out what to read, I open up one of my many digital poetry collections and Mary Oliver never disappoints. 

As Autumn is making way for the frozen silence that Winter allows, I settle close to nature poetry.

source: the poetry foundation

Snowy Night by Mary Oliver

Last night, an owl

in the blue dark

tossed an indeterminate number

of carefully shaped sounds into

the world, in which,

a quarter of a mile away, I happened

to be standing.

I couldn’t tell

which one it was –

the barred or the great-horned

ship of the air –

it was that distant. But, anyway,

aren’t there moments

that are better than knowing something,

and sweeter? Snow was falling,

so much like stars

filling the dark trees

that one could easily imagine

its reason for being was nothing more

than prettiness. I suppose

if this were someone else’s story

they would have insisted on knowing

whatever is knowable – would have hurried

over the fields

to name it – the owl, I mean.

But it’s mine, this poem of the night,

and I just stood there, listening and holding out

my hands to the soft glitter

falling through the air. I love this world,

but not for its answers.

And I wish good luck to the owl,

whatever its name –

and I wish great welcome to the snow,

whatever its severe and comfortless

and beautiful meaning. 

poetry pause: nothing gold can stay:: robert frost: 1923

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Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

-Robert Frost, 1923

poetry pause: john keats:: to autumn: 1820

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Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

   Steady thy laden head across a brook;

   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloomthe soft-dying day,

   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

   Among the river sallows, borne aloft

      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

-John Keats // 1820