No. 48

The outside temperature is decently over a hundred degrees plus humidity, and only summer poems seem appropriate for this weekend.  One of my favorites, discovered during my first college summer, in the quiet moments with poetry that living by yourself provides, is this tiny yet compelling bit from Emily Dickinson (but of course).

To see the Summer Sky

is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie --

True Poems flee--

Have a happy weekend, friends!






p.s. I got into my master's program!  Thanks for all the happy thoughts and well-wishes! 


Image by Michael Garbutt of Elgarbo Art and Elgarbo on Etsy, available here
& my favorite Dickinson poem
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No. 44

I began art journaling recently--actually, yesterday. I also began paging through Mary Oliver's American Primitive.  Both the process of creating and the process of reading poetry are rediscovered pleasures. 

Today, I have one of Oliver's poems, a snippet of which made its way onto a collage of Orla Kiely printed wrapping paper, kraft paper, and watercolor in my new little art journal, which I'll share sometime next week.

The Roses

Mary Oliver

One day in summer

when everything

has already been more than enough

the wild beds start

exploding open along the berm

of the sea; day after day

you sit near them; day after day

the honey keeps on coming

in the red cups and the bees

like amber drops roll

in the petals: there is no end,

believe me! to the inventions of summer,

to the happiness your body

is willing to bear.

Oliver, Mary. American Primitive. New York: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company, 1978.

No. 41

I cannot find the author of this poem, but I'm sharing it anyway.  I'm hoping for a little quiet and silence this weekend, and hope you find some, too.

Happy Friday!

No. 37

More Than Enough

Marge Piercy

The first lily of June opens its red mouth.

All over the sand road where we walk

multiflora rose climbs trees cascading

white or pink blossoms, simple, intense

the scene drifting like colored mist.

The arrowhead is spreading its creamy

clumps of flower and the blackberries

are blooming in the thickets. Season of

joy for the bee. The green will never

again be so green, so purely and lushly

new, grass lifting its wheaty seedheads

into the wind. Rich fresh wine

of June, we stagger into you smeared

with pollen, overcome as the turtle

laying her eggs in roadside sand.

Image from the country diary of an Edwardian lady/poem from the Poetry Foundation

No. 33

With our second anniversary behind us and a wedding before us, love of the lifelong kind is filling my mind right now.  I left you a poem on Tuesday, from Neruda, which was easy to choose--it was perfect, one of those things you encounter and know exactly what to do with it.

Today--or rather, tonight, as I'm writing this post for tomorrow morning--no specific poems came to mind.  So I tumbled around, wished I'd brought one of my anthologies with me to Lexington, and finally found the right words for the weekend.  I should've started with E.E. Cummings.

Original image source unknown

No. 26

I fell a little in love with this poem when I was first falling in love with my husband.  It was assigned in my intro to literature course, but wasn't discussed to death by my professor, like most other works we read, and I fortunately stayed in love with it.

To me, this poem is about that stage of loving someone in which you're very much in love, but afraid of falling out of it, or being left, or being separated from your beloved by circumstances outside your control.  Then, slowly but surely, you discover that the space of life belongs to you both, together, and your love will not be snatched away after all.  This poem is about the journey from the nervous early stages of love into the steady day-by-day lifetime love.

That Night When Joy Began

by W. H. Auden

That night when joy began

Our narrowest veins to flush

We waited for the flash

Of morning's leveled gun.

But morning let us pass,

And day by day relief

Outgrew his nervous laugh

Grows credulous of peace.

As mile by mile is seen

No trespasser's reproach,

And love's best glasses reach

No fields but are his own

Image: my hand in my husband's, the day we got engaged

No. 24

Friday is here, and I am glad.  Sometimes I do wish it would stay awhile longer than twenty-four little hours, especially a Friday in May when the world around here is so colorful and bright.  Spring always reminds me of poetry, with the way both are brief and yet packed with significance, and I'd like to start sharing a poem with you every Friday.  


This poem is by Wendy Videlock, a writer I don't know well but found through The Poetry Foundation.  It was originally published in Poetry earlier this year.  I hope you enjoy it!

Flowers

for my mother

They are fleeting.

They are fragile.

They require

little water.

They’ll surprise you.

They’ll remind you

that they aren’t

and they are you.

Image: DIY welcome mat by Kinsey Mhire