Monday, April 27, 2009

On softer air than wind


There is a voice
That goes on softer air than wind
Into the lily's horn
Out to the tip of arm-crossed bows

It is no fool of the tongue 
Or language and it's weepings
No, it speaks, moves, mimes and spits
All the fibers of the human clothe
That do stretch far
In brocade and gingham, silk and yarn
And to the deepest down particle - 
Shakes to make and atom breathe

Is there a place where it stops
  To listen to things that grow and tremble
And when they fall too quiet to hear
Does it stoop 

There is no taming of its song
Oh not the gentle wildness that always
Turns and twists into every placid corner
To form a flash where beauty lives
And pulls every good and perfect 
With every bad and broken
Into the everlasting melody 




Tuesday, March 24, 2009

I breathe it's true


I breathe while I wait

In deeper to anticipate

I breathe to walk

In heavy and dry – arresting talk

 

It drags on what thoughts would disappear

It bridges and stitches the space where there’s none

I breathe a symphony at night and never hear

The steady beat and whistling with the sunken sun

 

I breathe whether I like to or not

Holding when in beauty or shock

I breathe to extend each hour

Though I am not strong or bright with power

 

The passion of my heart does not rival

All the deep down swells of my breath

For it is the origin of my survival

The happy, hopeless guardian from death

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The beginnings of enjoyment


It's not easy to understand Poetry.  And it is for this reason that I am swaying from my normal format.

Today I want to talk about poetry.  I want to TALK about it or at least the beginning of my enjoyment of this magical thing.  Poetry, my friends, is like the beating of your heart or breathing.  It is rhythmic and consistent but also allows for intensified speed  or the pulling and pushing of tempo.  It is essential to life because it gives us a window into ourselves from outside ourselves.  It is food.  A nourishment that is unattainable at a grocery store.

Of course all of this jabber is just my idealism peaking out.  Sorry.  I won't let that happen again.

Let me get back to the start.

I grew up knee deep in literature.  As the child of a writer (my mom) and an emotionally charged former Marine, I spent much of my childhood dinners discussing the ramifications of Hamlet's numerous soliloquies or the poetic pros of Pat Conroy or the complex beauty of Donne.  

My eldest brother Eric told my mom the day he was ready to read and hasn't stop. Literally.  He reads everything.  Every billboard.  Every marking on a package. He now is an extraordinary poet in his own right and an English teacher at a local prep school.  

My second brother Joe has memorized every single word he has ever read or written.  I remember playing a game that consisted of Joe reciting a line and the rest of the family having to guess what novel he had extracted it from.  He practiced his poetry only a short time but constructed some lovely pieces about his now wife, Andrea.

Having grown up around giants you would have thought that it would have put me a step ahead on the map but my little brother and I struggled to read and to enjoy it.  I myself could hardly sound a word until sixth grade.  I felt stunted and was.  I felt behind though I was constantly engaged in  the interpretation and appreciation of literature each night at the dinner table.  

I was emotional.  I wanted to connect with the emotions of people around me.  I wanted to know I wasn't alone.  But I was also a free spirit and the idea of sitting around reading a book for hours hardly interested me at all especially considering the difficulty with which I knew I had to approach the written word.  

One day, I remember more clearly than most in my life.  I entered my mother's sewing room, where she often wild away hours creating and dreaming.  I, as if everything was normal,  sat down on the cold wood floor to watch my mother make her latest project.  I remember hitting the floor and instantly sobbing.  

"I'm stupid", I said.  "I don't understand anything."  My mother turned to me and said, "You are not stupid.  Here let me prove it to you."

So she pulled out a tattered copy of a paperback book.  I didn't like the cover...so I couldn't like what was inside either and I highly doubted that it would prove me to be not stupid let alone intelligent.  

We read each line together and untangled the tortured lines as a team.  And after each one she asked me, "What does this mean?", and I would answer.  Before I knew it, we had finished the poem and all my misgivings about my intellect had melted away with the sounding of the buttery poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. 

It was here that my love of poetry and I suppose all creative beauty was born.  You could say that the seeds for this love had been planted long before my recognition of it but I don't believe that matters.  

I am thankful for my mom having walked me through my agony and pointing me toward beauty.  I am thankful for my father who spent every evening with me reading aloud and weeping over the deep astounding loveliness of George MacDonald.  And I am thankful for this poem, which began my long love affair with - you guessed it - poetry.

God's Grandeur 

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Left Overs

Enjoy this little snippet - a recent dilemma of mine.
Oh! The remnants of the season - 
Left to linger without reason.
I am not fool enough to extend their reaches
to the sparkling Spring or Summer's bright beaches
But what to do with these glorious canes of red and white
Than to indulge in delicious delight?
So I shove down one by one - 
licking and crunching until I'm done.
I care not for disciplined discretion in this case
Only for the sweetness and the brilliance of gluttonous taste.
And I assume it will be said that I died happy
Because I overdosed on Christmas candy. 

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

A call

I think that in my spiritual pursuit I have found that my bewilderment toward God has often been my misunderstanding.  Constantly we pursue God.  Constantly we ask that he let us into his person - that he allow us to glimpse his heart.  Yet we miss.  Our quest for understanding is often hindered by, unbelievably, ourselves and not in fact God's refusal to be with us.  

I believe God is inviting us, continually, to dance.

Here is a poem that is actually a song that Rob Levit and I have been working on.  Please enjoy this little foretaste of our upcoming project.
Where have you gone and why do you hide?
Do you not long to stand beside?
I want to know where you begin
And the mystery that is within

Hunger strikes it stings back.
You always feel the pain before you know you lack.
He has gone far away for so long
With only the promise of a new song.

You hear
        You hear

Slow down and dance with me.
Turn around. I'm here don't you see.
And dance with me.

Melody's out of reach - 
Where echoes of longing and desire meet.
On his lips are the words to complete
And in his voice food to eat.

You hear
You hear

Slow down and dance with me.
Turn around. I'm here don't you see.
And dance with me.

But the feast doesn't end
Nor does the music born of the heart bend.
Tracing out his line with each tune,
He draws near to be with me soon.

You hear
You hear

Slow down and dance with me. 
Turn around. I'm here don't you see.
And dance with me.

Where have you gone and why do you hide?
Do you not long to stand beside?
I want to know where you end
And the mystery that is within.

Friday, January 16, 2009

I'm A Girl With

It is often refreshing to write honestly about one's self.  It is not often done, I believe, because it is much to scary to be frequented by many a melancholy artist.  The natural depression of the creative does not allow for too much time in self-reflection if one is to remain healthy.  So instead we write about things we don't know like far off lands with daggers and unicorns...well, I don't but I've heard some people do.

Nevertheless, I thought it might be appropriate today to post a poem that expresses the frustrations I had as a child and that still linger in me even now, as an adult.  I was terribly clumsy - more so than most - and I have not recovered. 

This is silly and was quite fun to write.  

An ode to being quite imperfect:
I'm a girl with
  broken-hearted
Songs and whispers
  tears and blisters

It's not so bad
     That I am small
It's just hard to hear
     when I call

I tie my bonnet
  with roses on it
To keep my tangles
  from flying in angles

It's not so bad
     That I am small
There's just no help
     for hair at all

So heal my scratches
  but don't cover with patches 
Forgive this wild
  and scrape-kneed child

It's not so bad
     That I'm small
It makes it closer
     when I fall