Category: Poetry

“Loss” by A.R. Ammons

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When the sun
falls behind the sumac
thicket the
wild
yellow daisies
in diffuse evening shade
lose their
rigorous attention
and
half-wild with loss
turn
any way the wind does
and lift their
petals up
to float
off their stems
and go.

A.R. Ammons, from Collected Poems: 1951-1971. W. W. Norton & Company.

From “Letters To A Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry, Quote5 Comments

From Letter 4:

… But everything that may someday be possible for many people, the solitary man can now, already, prepare and build with his own hands, which make fewer mistakes.Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away, you write, and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast. And if what is near you is far away, then your vastness is already among the stars and is very great; be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind;be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust. Avoid providing material for the drama, that is always stretched tight between parent and children; it uses up much of the children’s strength and wastes the love of the elders, which acts and warms even if it doesn’t comprehend Don’t ask for any advice from them and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”

Letters To A Young Poet

by Rainer Maria Rilke

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I found Rilke’s letters published on-line here. Again, this selection is from Letter 4. As deeply as many of you were touched by Frida’s piece, I wanted to encourage you to keep faith in love, as jaded and as solitary as some of us may feel. To believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance…

I may not be able to bring you each Frida’s proverbial cup of coffee, but I can bring you poetry, and, from time to time, maybe even a little hope. Thanks for continuing to read and for being patient with the intermittent posts. The new year should bring more frequent scheduled postings. Much love, Christy

“You deserve a lover…” by Frida Kahlo

On By Christina's WordsIn Art, Poetry23 Comments
“Self portrait- the frame” by Frida Kahlo. Courtesy of www.FridaKahlo.org

You deserve a lover who wants you disheveled, with everything and all the reasons that wake you up in a haste and the demons that won’t let you sleep.

You deserve a lover who makes you feel safe, who can consume this world whole if he walks hand in hand with you; someone who believes that his embraces are a perfect match with your skin.

You deserve a lover who wants to dance with you, who goes to paradise every time he looks into your eyes and never gets tired of studying your expressions.

You deserve a lover who listens when you sing, who supports you when you feel shame and respects your freedom; who flies with you and isn’t afraid to fall.

You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.

Frida Kahlo

“November, Remembering Voltaire” by Jane Hirshfield

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry4 Comments

In the evenings
I scrape my fingernails clean,
hunt through old catalogues for new seed,
oil work boots and shears.
This garden is no metaphor –
more a task that swallows you into itself,
earth using, as always, everything it can.
I lend myself to unpromising winter dirt
with leaf-mold and bulb,
plant into the oncoming cold.
Not that I ever thought the philosopher
meant to be taken literally,
but with no invented God overhead
I conjure a stubborn faith in rotting
that ripens into soil,
in an old corm that flowers steadily each spring –
not symbols but reassurances,
like a mother’s voice at bedtime
reading a long-familiar book, the known words
barely listened to, but bridging
for all the nights of a life
each world to the next.

Jane Hirshfield, 1983
Of Gravity & Angels

“Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by Wallace Stevens

On By Christina's WordsIn Music, Poetry5 Comments
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

 

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

 

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

 

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

 

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

 

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

 

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

 

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

 

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

 

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

 

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

 

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

 

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

Wallace Stevens, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. Copyright 1954 by Wallace Stevens. Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

 

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“Blackbird Song” by Lee DeWyze