Poetry Thursday

Sometimes

When they criticize you how do you
hold your wings? I hold mine out
and down, descend a little, then more.
Cool air comes. Nobody cares how low
I descend, and the way my eyes close
makes me disappear. They have their sky again.

So thin a life I have, scribbling dust
when I turn, trailing as if to follow
something inside the earth, something beyond
this place. If I accept what comes,
another sky is there. My serious face
bends to the ground, the dust, the lowered wings.

William Stafford

I am in love with William Stafford. Every time I read one of his poems I feel like he has taken a peak inside my soul and written the words I cannot say. I hope you are inspired to spend some time with him...

serendipity hits blog world again. I came across Lisa's blog over the weekend. She has been posting poetry on Thursdays for quite a while now. I guess it is a feature on the Washington DC Craig's List. I think this is just incredible. Here I am out here in Washington State deciding to post Poetry on Thursdays, and other people around the world have joined in on the fun, while people out on the East Coast have been having fun with Poetry Thursday for a while now. People around the world sharing poetry. I just love it!

I am often asked: what are the rules of Poetry Thursday? No rules really. To participate in Poetry Thursday, all you have to do is post a poem (by someone else or your own poem) on your blog on Thursday (or close to it). If you don't have a blog, you can post a poem here in the comments. I am out of town until Sunday, so if you are new to Poetry Thursday (and you aren't in the list on my side bar) and you posted a poem on your blog, please leave a comment with your link so others can visit you. Also, if you want to join Poetry Thursday, please send me an email at waywardtulip @ gmail.com and I will add you to the list when I return. Make sure you include a link to your blog and the way you would like your name to appear in the sidebar.

Happy reading!

poetry thursday

My readings of late, blogs and books, have had a theme. Recognizing your fears, recognizing the life you want to live, learning to let go of fear to begin to live that life. I have spent some time synthesizing my thoughts about all of this. But I am not ready to write them yet. Today, on Poetry Thursday, I will let the words of Mary Oliver add to this theme.

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom; taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver (from the book New and Selected Poems)

If you are not yet a Poetry Thursday participant, and you would like to share a poem today, post one on your blog or share one here in the comments of this post. If you would like me to add you to the list of participants, please send me an email and I will add you to this list.

And if you feel moved, print out a poem you read today or find a favorite book of poetry, run a bath, and have a Poetry Reading in the bathtub. Just you, the words of another (or your own), and your voice vibrating around you.

poetry thursday

Unknown

Like a spider suspended
from a beam, the moment
swayed. The silk
of the web was invisible.
Belief seemed an unlikely thing.

And the spider herself was monstrous,
a spotted bulb with transparent legs
sharp as hooks. She fidgeted in midair,

plucked the strings of the web
to re-create a keyhole,
to make herself
the key into the next passage.

Nothing seemed apparent.
The breeze moved through the keyhole.
I wanted to flatten
against a wall like a moth.
Two lips holding back a cry.

Jennifer Grotz

This is from Grotz's 2003 collection of poems entitled Cusp. I chose it this morning because, for me, it speaks to this idea that is turning around in my mind (that I wrote about yesterday). This idea that we need to let it out. To let go of the fear of the unknown...

Please join me and post a poem today. If you accept my invitation, send me an email and I will post a link to your blog in my sidebar here. If you don't have a blog but would like to share a poem, please leave it here in the comments of this post.

May the words you read today invite a shift in your perspective.

poetry thursday

in the morning

for mary

it was my first poetry reading
i, a reluctant 7 year old attendee
standing in my jockeys as my sister,
her mouth twisting violently
around Dunbar’s dialectic verse,
screeched "lias, lias, bless de lawd"

at eight, my sister lacked subtlety
screaming lines without attention to timbre or tone,
commas & hyphens caused her no pause
she was, as instructed, projecting,
loud enough for her voice to bounce
off the rear of draper elementary’s auditorium
& to wake the deceased & resting Dunbar
a shrill fisherwoman’s delivery for a future audience

shut up, i muttered, through sleepy eyes
as my sister switched to Langston’s poem,
"life for me ain’t been no crystal stair"
her head rocking with emphasis & joy at my annoyance
i heard these two poems ricochet off the walls of our home
no less than five thousand times in a truncated February

my friends came to my home often,
looking for this kid named lias, who caused my sister
to scream with madness every waking hour
& searching in vain for the crystals in our stairs
by the time my sister had her official reading
our entire family was reciting both poems
like brainwashed idiots

thirty years later, it is me
annoying my family with verse and stanza
casting my life by the poems coursing my veins
while my sister’s life has become the jagged minstrel
that identify Dunbar’s lyrics
her song marked by the erratic meter
of an addict’s rhyme as she fills her lungs
with the shattered remains of a descending crystal stair

now i recite poems that beg her to live,
that implore her to be as tenacious in her search
for rhythm & meaning as the little girl
who lit up our home with sweet black words
who Langston warned and Dunbar amused

in the morning,
i pray for the blessing of any lord
for some lyrical benediction
to heal her cacophonous wounds
& make whole again the little girl,
who clings to sonnets & sobriety.

Kenneth Carroll

Right now, my deciding factor for Poetry Thursday is "poems that make me gasp out loud." And this one did. It also made me laugh out loud and invited little pinpricks of tears to tap at the back of my eyes.

If you would like to share a poem, one that speaks to you...makes you gasp out loud, please post it to your blog. And then you can email me and I will post a link to your blog in a new sidebar heading of Poetry Thursday participants. If you do not have a blog and want to post a poem, please feel free to post it in the comments here.

Let the poetry readings begin...

poetry thursdays

My plan was to post this much earlier...but I spent the evening at an urgent care center at the hospital with my husband. He is fine. Still, some scary moments...He is fine. He had to have a CAT scan. He is fine. I appreciate the kindess of doctors and nurses on an evening like tonight. A thank you from my heart to those of you who take care of others in this way.

I have a new idea. Poetry Thursdays.
An invitation to read a new poem or an old favorite.
An invitation to take the poem with you to the bathtub to have your own poetry reading.
An invitation to rediscover a poem that you love and share it with others.
An invitation to write a poem. Yes, you. Write. A. Poem.
An invitation to look at the world from another's perspective.
An invitation to let words resonate within you.

And I plan to extend this invitation through sharing a different poem each week. One I have discovered on this journey into poetry that I find myself on this year.

I read this one out loud to jonny tonight as we were waiting for the doctor to come back to tell us the plan...

Many Miles

The feet of the heron,
under those bamboo stems,
hold the blue body,
the great beak

above the shallows
of the pond.
Who could guess
their patience?

Sometimes the toes
shake, like worms.
What fish
could resist?

Or think of the cricket,
his green hooks
climbing the blade of grass-
or think of camel feet

like ear muffs,
striding over the sand-
or think of your own
slapping along the highway,

a long life,
many miles.
To each of us comes
the body gift.

- Mary Oliver