This Week in Reading #6

Because sometimes, only poetry will help

For all my cynicism, I do believe that poems are given to us by the gods, sitting in some nook of our brain or deep down in our Pinterest poetry boards until one day, they miraculously seem to grieve with you. The last couple of days have been such days. I wish had a more accurate adjective than difficult that could measure up to the grief that I and those around me have been through over the past few days. I don’t haven’t thought about a lot, let alone write or read. But I’d still like to leave you with a few borrowed words.

I know they have saved me, I hope they can save you too.

When I am asked - Lisel Mueller

When I am asked   
how I began writing poems,   
I talk about the indifference of nature.   

It was soon after my mother died,   
a brilliant June day,   
everything blooming.   

I sat on a gray stone bench   
in a lovingly planted garden,   
but the day lilies were as deaf   
as the ears of drunken sleepers   
and the roses curved inward.   
Nothing was black or broken   
and not a leaf fell   
and the sun blared endless commercials   
for summer holidays.   

I sat on a gray stone bench   
ringed with the ingenue faces   
of pink and white impatiens   

and placed my grief   
in the mouth of language,   
the only thing that would grieve with me.

Philip’s Birthday - Mary Oliver

I gave,
To a friend that I care for deeply,
Something that I loved.
It was only a small

Extremely shapely bone
That come from the ear
Of a whale.
It hurt a little

To give it away.
The next morning
I went out, as usual,
At sunrise

And there, in the harbor,
Was a swan.
I don’t know
What he or she was doing there,

But the beauty of it
Was gift.
Do you see what I mean?
You give, and you are given.

We Have Not Long to Love - Tennessee Williams

We have not long to love.
Light does not stay.
The tender things are those
we fold away.
Coarse fabrics are the ones
for common wear.
In silence I have watched you
comb your hair.
Intimate the silence,
dim and warm.
I could but did not, reach
to touch your arm.
I could, but do not, break
that which is still.
(Almost the faintest whisper
would be shrill.)
So moments pass as though
they wished to stay.
We have not long to love.
A night. A day....