another reading

The blue sky is crystal clear today.
No clouds in sight.
Which means day four of no rain dropping on my head, the house, the earth.
Millie and I went for a walk.
Breathing in the fresh, crisp, dry air.
But it is cold.
Ears-hurting cold.
So I will warm up with a bath
and another poetry reading in the tub.
I think I will start with these words by William Stafford.

Things That Happen

Sometimes before great events a person will try,
disguised, at his best, not to be a clown:
he feels, "A great event is coming, bow down."
And I, always looking for something anyway,
always bow down.

Once, later than dawn but early,
before the lines of the calendar fell,
one of those events turned an unseen corner
and came near, near, sounding before it
somethign the opposite from a leper's bell.

We were back of three mountains called
"Sisters" along the Green Lakes trail
and had crossed a ridge when that
one little puff of air touched us,
hardly felt at all.

That was the greatest event that day;
it righted all wrong.
I remember it, the way the dust moved there.
Something had come out of the ground
and moved calmly along.

No one was ahead of us, no one
in all that moon-like land.
Oh, I thought, how hard the world has tried
with its wind, its miles, its blundering
stumbling days, again and again, to find my hand.

(from Allegiance new poems by William Stafford)

start here

A poetry reading

I gave a poetry reading
this morning,
in the bathtub.
Not my words, but the words of another.
Mary Oliver.
If thoughts of poetry make you nervous, start here.
She will liberate the expectations.
My audience was the shampoo, soap,
yellow rubber duck, purple poof,
a blue candle.
The flame bobbed in time with the cadence of my voice
rich, strong, clear in the cavern of the tub.
Rhythm of words. Pause. Intake of breath. A hint of laughter. Pause.
Turn the page.
Lines began to resonate. A peek into the soul of another.
But then I found the one I was sent to find this morning
to read aloud in the quiet still water of the tub.
Pause. Read again. Pause.
And the resonance became a vibration
deep within my heart.
The reflected understanding,
a glimpse inside my soul.

"and here I am too, in front of it,
hardly able to see for the flash and the brightness"

(line above from the poem "Something" by Mary Oliver in the collection Why I Wake Early)

journey to poetry

I have heard the whispered invitations to explore the poet's world.
Do not be afraid, the voices say.
You will know when you find your words.
Open the door.
Let the others in to speak to you.
So I did.
And I will.

Jonah by May Sarton
I come back from the belly of the whale
Bruised from the struggle with a living wall,
Drowned in a breathing dark, a huge heart-beat
That jolted helpless hands and useless feet,

Yet know it was not death, that vital warm,
Nor did the monster wish me any harm;
Only the prisoning was hard to bear
And three-weeks' need to burst back into air . .

Slowly the drowned self must be strangled free
And lifted whole out of that inmost sea,
To lie newborn under compassionate sky,
As fragile as a babe, with welling eye.

Do not be anxious, for now all is well,
The sojourn over in that fluid Hell,
My heart is nourished on no more than air,
Since every breath I draw is answered prayer.