Ode to the Present
Posted: 01/22/2012 Filed under: Photography, Poetry | Tags: Ode to the Present, Pablo Neruda 1 Comment »
Birthday flowers, waiting for a week to be photographed in good light. Then this poem reminded me: the best time is now. No matter cloudy skies!
Ode to the Present
by Pablo Neruda
This
present moment,
smooth
as a wooden slab,
this
immaculate hour,
this day
pure
as a new cup
from the past–
no spider web
exists–
with our fingers,
we caress
the present;
we cut it
according to our magnitude
we guide
the unfolding of its blossoms.
It is living,
alive–
it contains
nothing
from the unrepairable past,
from the lost past,
it is our
infant,
growing at
this very moment, adorned with
sand, eating from
our hands.
Grab it.
Don’t let it slip away.
Don’t lose it in dreams
or words.
Clutch it.
Tie it,
and order it
to obey you.
Make it a road,
a bell,
a machine,
a kiss, Read the rest of this entry »
Autumnal Equinox
Posted: 09/23/2011 Filed under: Nature, Photography, Poetry | Tags: autumn, autumnal, equinox, fall, Lisel Mueller, One More Hymn to the Sun, season, seasonal change Leave a comment »
The long wait is over — autumn is officially here! The new season swept into town in a shower of raindrops under cover of soft gray skies. The trees have yet to flash autumn a warm greeting of color, but the mushrooms? Oh, the mushrooms! They are welcoming autumn with all their might, much to the delight of the deer, who have been eagerly dining on the delicate morsels springing up throughout the yard and woods.
So many beautiful forms! Rounded and smooth, ruffled with fringe, embossed with dots. Buttons, cones, discs. Red, yellow, and tan against the bright green moss. And, of course, stark white against the fallen leaves, black with rain. Perfect on this day of balanced light and darkness.
Each year on the equinox, I return to a beloved poem by Lisel Mueller. By now it is an integral part of my life’s yearly cycle. Favorite excerpts are below. Happy Fall, everyone!
One More Hymn to the Sun
You know that like an ideal mother
she will never leave you,
though after a week of rain
you begin to worry
but you accept her brief absences,
her occasional closed doors
as the prerogative
of an eccentric lover . . .
You like the fact that her moods are an orderly version of yours,
arranged, like the needs of animals,
by seasons: her spring quirks,
her sexual summers,
her steadfast warmth in the fall;
you remember her face on Christmas Day,
blurred, and suffused with the weak smile
of a woman who has just given birth
The way she loves you, your whole body,
and still leaves enough space between you
to keep you from turning to cinders
before your time! . . .
She never gave up on you
though it took you billions of years
to learn the alphabet
and the shadow you cast on the ground
changed its shape again and again
- Lisel Mueller, The Missouri Review, 2.1, Fall 1978
Under the Harvest Moon
Posted: 09/11/2011 Filed under: Motherhood, Photography, Poetry 2 Comments »
"Snow peas? Yes! Bread? No, thank you!" at 9 months old.
We call the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox the Harvest Moon. That moon is tonight! Tonight is also the 9-month anniversary of Bennett’s birth. In honor of these: a photo of the baby I love, and a poem by a poet I love!
UNDER THE HARVEST MOON
Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.
Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
- Carl Sandburg, Chicago Poems (1916)
On Stripping Bark From Myself
Posted: 07/05/2011 Filed under: Poetry 4 Comments »
Every once in awhile, I like to draw a book of poetry off the shelf and open a page at random to see what it holds for me. A poetic oracle of sorts, like the I Ching, a Magic 8 Ball, a fortune cookie — those devices we sometimes use to reflect our own thoughts and fears and hopes back at ourselves. The clarifying wisdom lies in the interpretation, yes? Yes?
Two days ago, I pulled down a collection by Alice Walker, one I hadn’t yet sat with for any length of time. The pages fell open, and this poem, new to me (new to you, too?), is what they offered:
ON STRIPPING BARK FROM MYSELF
(for Jane, who said trees die from it)
Because women are expected to keep silent about
their close escapes I will not keep silent
and if I am destroyed (naked tree!) someone will
please
mark the spot
where I fall and know I could not live
silent in my own lies
hearing their “how nice she is!”
whose adoration of the retouched image
I so despise.
No. I am finished with living
for what my mother believes
for what my brother and father defend
for what my lover elevates
for what my sister, blushing, denies or rushes
to embrace.
I find my own
small person
a standing self
against the world
an equality of wills
I fully understand.
Besides:
My struggle was always against
an inner darkness: I carry within myself
the only known keys
to my death — to unlock life, or close it shut
forever. A woman who loves wood grains, the color
yellow.
and the sun, I am happy to fight
all outside murderers
as I see I must.
- Alice Walker, from Her Blue Body Everything We Know (1991), originally in Good Night, Willie Lee, I’ll See You In the Morning (1975)
The Summer Day
Posted: 06/21/2011 Filed under: Nature, Poetry 5 Comments »A summer solstice favorite… Happy summer, everyone!
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean –
the one who has flung herself out on the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down –
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
- Mary Oliver, House of Light (1990)
Lilacs in Bloom
Posted: 04/15/2011 Filed under: Nature, Photography, Poetry | Tags: Delights & Shadows, Old Lilacs, Ted Kooser 4 Comments »
Last year when the lilacs bloomed, I posted the poem below. I’m posting it again this year at lilac time, because I love it so much! The bloom in Virginia is about a month ahead of that in Kooser’s Nebraska, but the sentiment is no less lovely for the asynchrony.
Old Lilacs
Through early April cold,
these thin gray horses
have come near the house
as to a fence, and lean there
hungry for summer,
nodding their heads
with a nickering of twigs.
Their long legs are dusty
from standing for months
in winter’s stall, and their eyes
are like a cloudy sky
seen through bare branches
They are waiting for May
to come up from the barn
with her overalls pockets
stuffed with the fodder
of green. In a month
they will be slow and heavy,
their little snorts so sweet
you’ll want to stand
among them, breathing.
- Ted Kooser, from Delights & Shadows (2004)
Dogwoods in Bloom
Posted: 04/06/2011 Filed under: Nature, Photography, Poetry | Tags: Cornus florida, flowering dogwood, Virginia, Williamsburg 3 Comments »having no thought
we’ve come to see them -
dogwoods in bloom
- Michael McClintock
Cornus florida, Flowering Dogwood
April Is Here!
Posted: 04/01/2011 Filed under: Motherhood, Nature, Poetry Leave a comment »It’s April — time for Walking in Season! But, here’s the thing. Although in his 3.5 months Bennett has managed to accumulate everything from piles of clothes to organic plush vegetable toys to a lambskin rug, he has not managed to procure a pair of shoes that fit. And it is “cold” today (in the 40s). And the last time we took him out walking at this temperature — even with multiple layers of socks on — his little feet were still chilled by the time we got home. And we, of course, felt the obligatory parental guilt.
So, Walking in Season will come to you tomorrow, when the high is in the 60s and Bennett can accompany us on the loop with toasty toes. Until then, enjoy the April poem from the children’s book A Child’s Calendar.
And now I’m off to go order a little pair of shoes…
April
It’s spring! Farewell
To chills and colds!
The blushing, girlish
World unfolds
Each flower, leaf,
And blade of turf –
Small love-notes sent
From air to earth.
The sky’s a herd
Of prancing sheep,
The birds and fields
Abandon sleep,
And jonquils, tulips,
Daffodils
Bloom bright upon
The wide-eyed hills.
All things renew.
All things begin.
At church, they bring
The lilies in.
- John Updike, A Child’s Calendar (1965)
The Mud Smells Happy On Our Shoes
Posted: 03/09/2011 Filed under: Motherhood, Nature, Poetry 2 Comments »
When Bennett was born, friends of our family got his library off to a great start with a pile of wonderful books. This book, A Child’s Calendar by John Updike, with illustrations by Trina Shart Hyman, is one of our favorites!
The book contains twelve poems, one for each month of the year, and is sure to be a favorite of anyone who loves to keep an eye on the changing of the seasons.
I’m not usually a fan of rhyming poetry, but these poems are especially sweet: perfect for children, but with appeal for grown-ups, too.
Here is the poem for March, which we have learned by heart, and which we recite to Bennett as we look out the window or go on a walk, where, yes, we see crocuses, robins, and chickadees, and where, yes, the mud smells happy on our shoes!
March
The sun is nervous
As a kite
That can’t quite keep
Its own string tight.
Some days are fair,
And some are raw.
The timid earth
Decides to thaw.
Shy budlets peep
From twigs on trees,
And robins join
The chickadees.
Pale crocuses
Poke through the ground
Like noses come
To sniff around.
The mud smells happy
On our shoes.
We still wear mittens,
Which we lose.
- John Updike, A Child’s Calendar (1965, revised 1999)
Winter Solstice, Full Moon, Blogoversary
Posted: 12/21/2010 Filed under: Nature, Poetry | Tags: blogoversary, ee cummings, i thank you god for most this amazing, lunar eclipse, solstice, winter solstice 6 Comments »One year ago today, A Life in Season was born.
What a journey this first year has been!
Like our lives, our blogs cycle between dormancy and activity.
Waxing and waning and waxing again.
Today: the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. The first day of winter. The rebirth of the sun!
Tonight: the full moon. The Oak Moon, the Cold Moon, the Long Night Moon.
Now: this poem. Whether to you God is God, or God is Nature, or God is nothing, I hope you find good in it.
Happy, happy solstice!
i thank you God for most this amazing
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any – lifted from the no
of all nothing – human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
- e.e. cummings, from Complete Poems 1904-1962 (1994)
