Life, Law, Gender

National Poetry Month 2006

I am sorry that I overlooked that April is National Poetry Month (just as it was last year and the year before)!  It comes at a tough time in the school year and I apologize.  I will try to find some of my favorite poems and publish them here before the end of the month.  Go.  Read poetry.  Post some, too.  In comments, or on your blog, or in your heart.  Poetry is good for the soul.  So say I. 

[UPDATE] Jami, in comments, makes a great suggestion that you check out Spicy Cauldron (now added to my blogroll).  I think you should, too, so I elevated her suggestion into the post.

[UPDATE 2] And, check out Desperate Kingdoms, and this poem.  Also added to my blogroll.

[UPDATE 3] And, oh my gosh, HOW did I overlook Julie?  If you don't already read Carter's Little Pill, you should.  Scroll backward through her archives.  She's got a poem for every day of the month (which she calls NaPo).

Closing out Nat'l Poetry Month

Tomorrow is the end of April (how, in god's name, can that be?). With it, National Poetry Month ends.  My poetry posts this month were:

Desiderata by Max Erhmann
Summer Sun by Robert Louis Stevenson
Becoming Tao Te Ching translation by Peter Merel
Stray Dog by Anna F. (my mom)

And, my final offering comes from a list that I belong to:

MISCEGENATION LAW

Never let the Church and State

Get close enough to meet and mate;

For the safety of our nation

Prohibit this miscegenation;

Keep Church far from the bed of State;

Separate their greed and hate;

Abstinence is what they need

Or the monsters they will breed

Will mongrelize both law and creed.

Never let Church marry State-

Do not even let them date.

                  Edwin Kagin, a Bright

Stray Dog

Her ears are alert as I coax,

Any pedigree lost in ribs and matted fur.

She slinks from sight

As a wisp of cream in black coffee if I come too near

Daily I leave food and water.

She is wary as she licks the bowls clean.

Trust is a distant planet,

Perhaps unreachable, far beyond the galaxies of need

Still, like lovers, we are eager to ease hunger, claim devotion.

We move apart, uncompromising, remeasuring distance

Our anxiety stretched like a leash between us.

-Anna F. (my mom - Ed.)

Becoming

Becoming

Using the male, being female,
Being the entrance of the world,
You embrace harmony
And become as a newborn.

Using strength, being weak,
Being the root of the world,
You complete harmony
And become as unshaped wood.

Using the light, being dark,
Being the world,
You perfect harmony
And return to the Way

Peter Merel's Tao Te Ching

In celebration of Spring!

Summer Sun 

GREAT is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven without repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.
Though closer still the blinds we pull        

To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.  
The dusty attic, spider-clad,
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;  

And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.
Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look  

Among the ivy's inmost nook.    
Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.

Robert Louis Stevenson

courtesy of Amanda

National Poetry Month

My blog is one year old this month (well, technically this blog was started a year ago this month).

Sometime earlier today I remembered that last year April was National Poetry Month.  Several bloggers posted poems in response.  I really liked that, so I thought I would do it again this year.  For the rest of the month, I will post at least one poem per week.

Previous poems appearing on this blog can be found here (written by my mom), here, and here.  Also note that Amanda has several posts about poems, with this one being her own.

Today's poem is an old one entitled Desiderata. I have a copy of it framed (a gift from Dan, my former father in law) in my apartment.  I read it regularly:

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

-- written by Max Ehrmann in the 1920s --
Not "Found in Old St. Paul's Church"!

Pieces

I live in pieces 

I am no longer whole

With each new love, I give a piece of me away

I never get it back

As the losses mount

I wonder

Can I live in just the piece left to me

Will the fragment sustain breath

If I offer you that piece of me

Will you take the whole

Will you make me whole

Can I have just one peace

Footsteps

Footsteps following an ancient path
leaving behind the familiar, the everyday,
the certain.  Footsteps making fresh tracks
in the snow, moving through blue space
uncovering the mystery.  Footsteps
leading in new directions, striking out
on their own, being bold.

I think of footsteps now, remembering you
and how we were together.  How laughter
was our medicine, and love our daily meal.
I think of you and our footsteps
intertwining, weaving a tapestry
of love and family and home.
I think of you and our footsteps drifting,
taking different paths, tearing us apart.
I think of you and feel the tears we shed
in the silence of our hearts.
I think of you and remember the rending
of the fabric we had made.
How I feel today the frayed threads still
woven through me, the ends without
connections that always used to be.

I think of you and all our footsteps,
the ones that set me dancing
and those that sent me searching
toward a separate goal -- the coming
to awareness in new, expanded places.
I look back at all those footsteps
and how they brought me here
to the tops of distant mountains,
to inner worlds I'd never known,
to fulfillment of dreams
I'd never dared dream.

I am thankful for our footsteps
for the dancing and the pain.
I am grateful for the journey
and the gifts along the way.

-- Lynn Asch