poems

This came through this very morning from the Poets.org newsletter. Ada Limon is getting to be a favorite of mine and this is just wonderful–” a small spasm of joy I did not imagine/ when I woke.”

Give Me This
by Ada Limón

I thought it was the neighbor’s cat back
to clean the clock of the fledgling robins low
in their nest stuck in the dense hedge by the house
but what came was much stranger, a liquidity
moving all muscle and bristle. A groundhog
slippery and waddle thieving my tomatoes still
green in the morning’s shade. I watched her
munch and stand on her haunches taking such
pleasure in the watery bites. Why am I not allowed
delight? A stranger writes to request my thoughts
on suffering. Barbed wire pulled out of the mouth,
as if demanding that I kneel to the trap of coiled
spikes used in warfare and fencing. Instead,
I watch the groundhog closer and a sound escapes
me, a small spasm of joy I did not imagine
when I woke. She is a funny creature and earnest,
and she is doing what she can to survive.

Poems are usually later in the week but I had to get this one in, because it mentions August! And today is the last day of August! Let’s be super literal!! (I always like Louise Glück and this one captures that “throw the comb away” feeling I get at the end of summer.)

Vespers (End of August)
by Louise Glück

End of August. Heat
like a tent over
John’s garden. And some things
have the nerve to be getting started,
clusters of tomatoes, stands
of late lilies—optimism
of the great stalks—imperial
gold and silver: but why
start anything
so close to the end?
Tomatoes that will never ripen, lilies
winter will kill, that won’t
come back in spring. Or
are you thinking
I spend too much time
looking ahead, like
an old woman wearing
sweaters in summer;
are you saying I can
flourish, having
no hope
of enduring? Blaze of the red cheek, glory
of the open throat, white,
spotted with crimson.

I signed up for the Poets.org newsletter about a month ago and they’ve consistently been featuring Black poets. This is from the newsletter; I like how the form is almost a sonnet, but with the rhymes shifted.

ALL Y’ALL REALLY FROM ALABAMA
Ashley M. Jones

…The straitjackets of race prejudice and discrimination do not wear only southern labels. The subtle, psychological technique of the North has approached in its ugliness and victimization of the Negro the outright terror and open brutality of the South.”
            ― Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can’t Wait (Beacon Press, 2011)

this here the cradle of this here
nation—everywhere you look, roots run right
back south. every vein filled with red dirt, blood,
cotton. we the dirty word you spit out your
mouth. mason dixon is an imagined line—you
can theorize it, or wish it real, but it’s the same
old ghost—see-through, benign. all y’all from
alabama; we the wheel turning cotton to make
the nation move. we the scapegoat in a land built
from death. no longitude or latitude disproves
the truth of founding fathers’ sacred oath:
we hold these truths like dark snuff in our jaw,
Black oppression’s not happenstance; it’s law.

I went to
the gym
and got a new PR
for deadlift this morning

I pulled 185 with mixed grip
despite taking 6 weeks off
and dropping a weight
on my foot

Forgive me
William Carlos Williams
but I am so proud
and will be so sore

I know there are poets who think a poem should be anything but nice–challenging, beautiful, monumental–but I like nice ones. And by nice I mean “kind” and “reassuring,” but not simple: This one could be pretty dark but it makes you feel better in the end.

For the Sake of Strangers
Dorianne Laux

No matter what the grief, its weight,
we are obliged to carry it.
We rise and gather momentum, the dull strength
that pushes us through crowds.
And then the young boy gives me directions
so avidly. A woman holds the glass door open,
waiting patiently for my empty body to pass through.
All day it continues, each kindness
reaching toward another—a stranger
singing to no one as I pass on the path, trees
offering their blossoms, a child
who lifts his almond eyes and smiles.
Somehow they always find me, seem even
to be waiting, determined to keep me
from myself, from the thing that calls to me
as it must have once called to them—
this temptation to step off the edge
and fall weightless, away from the world.

Another relevant one. That last line just breaks your heart.

A Small Needful Fact
Ross Gay

Is that Eric Garner worked
for some time for the Parks and Rec.
Horticultural Department, which means,
perhaps, that with his very large hands,
perhaps, in all likelihood,
he put gently into the earth
some plants which, most likely,
some of them, in all likelihood,
continue to grow, continue
to do what such plants do, like house
and feed small and necessary creatures,
like being pleasant to touch and smell,
like converting sunlight
into food, like making it easier
for us to breathe.

I was going to write about what’s happening in Portland, how the current administration seems more poised to seize power than to sit through a fair election, but I don’t have words for it. Just fear and anger and grief and anxiety. I’m not even sure a poem helps, but wow do some of the lines feel good to say.

The Conditional
Ada Limón

Say tomorrow doesn’t come.
Say the moon becomes an icy pit.
Say the sweet-gum tree is petrified.
Say the sun’s a foul black tire fire.
Say the owl’s eyes are pinpricks.
Say the raccoon’s a hot tar stain.
Say the shirt’s plastic ditch-litter.
Say the kitchen’s a cow’s corpse.
Say we never get to see it: bright
future, stuck like a bum star, never
coming close, never dazzling.
Say we never meet her. Never him.
Say we spend our last moments staring
at each other, hands knotted together,
clutching the dog, watching the sky burn.
Say, It doesn’t matter. Say, That would be
enough. Say you’d still want this: us alive,
right here, feeling lucky.

This came through in the Pome newsletter a week or so ago. I like that last line a lot, especially after being too social.

The Copper Beech
Marie Howe

Immense, entirely itself,
it wore that yard like a dress,

with limbs low enough for me to enter it
and climb the crooked ladder to where

I could lean against the trunk and practice being alone.

One day, I heard the sound before I saw it, rain fell
darkening the sidewalk.

Sitting close to the center, not very high in the branches,
I heard it hitting the high leaves, and I was happy,

watching it happen without it happening to me.

This was in the Pome newsletter last week and, while I don’t usually go for a prose poem, I like it–“A long trip of days like song.” Here’s hoping.

Better Days are Ahead

Better days are ahead. The days of the child musicians in tune with the parks. The days of the orbiting earth and other meetings like kisses. I say better days are ahead. Days with cigars and beautiful women. Days of brides like flowers. Better days will come. Days without hate or war. Days of moon and sun. The days fiery red candles will come for dinner. Happy days are coming. Seas and friends will come. The sunrays speak of the day. I mean the day of the next big star. They say better days are ahead. The dream day will come. The days of marvel are to come. Legitimate police. Days bright as fire that sound like thunder. Days of angels and guitars. Days of metal trumpets. Better days are ahead. Do not be discouraged. The days of paid debts and banquets of grapes will come. The days like circuses will come. The tamed lions and elephants and hyenas will come. The days of the peaceful jungle will come. A long trip of days like song. The vast Nile now a furrow. The days of liquid flames, of flying men, of galaxies, of women who will come as the night.

Miguel James
trans. Anne Boyer

I didn’t know the city of Bristol had a poet laureate but they do and her name is Vanessa Kisuule. She wrote a poem about the statue of Edward Colston getting removed and it’s wonderful. It’s wonderful to hear her read it, too–I forget poetry is about sound (her delightful British accent doesn’t hurt either). Give it a listen: