Tag: poem

#ThursdayTreeLove | “Thank You, Tree”

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I found an adorable poem today when I went to play with Earth Stanzas. It was written by 11-year-old Fatou M’baye, a 5th grader in Kent Ohio. I am not only impressed with her poetic skills but I am also impressed with her mature relationship with trees.

Thank You, Tree
Fatou M’baye

Tree, you put the spark
back in my body.
And when I take a breath,
the lights behind my eyes
are turned on, and the fire
in my furnace crackles.
The whole world stops buzzing.

For once the Earth
will have a chance to think
and remember why we’re here.
On that day, I’ll look at you, tree,
through your leaves, your bark,
your sapwood, all the way to your heart—
your beating, beating heart—

and say, Thank you.

Fatou talks about the inspiration for the poem here: Thank You, Tree.

About the image: The postcard above was sent to me by my friend Christine B as an extra in Love Notes 26 (last year). The photo, shot by Reinhard Eisele, features “Stone Pines by the Gulf of Baratti” in the Tuscany region of Italy. Another translation tells me the trees are “Umbrella Pines.” [Which one is it?]

I am joining Parul Thakur for #ThursdayTreeLove every second and fourth Thursday of the month. If you would like to play along, post a picture of a tree on your blog and link it back to her latest #treelove post.

Remember…

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Today, I’m sharing a poem by the current United States Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo. I first encountered her work via a Native American Literature course in graduate school, and  I’ve been enjoying her work since then.

The final prompt for Love Notes 31 [which ended last week] was “Don’t Forget to Remember,” and thinking of no way to respond to the prompt that was neither trite nor lengthy, I found myself drawn to Harjo’s poem, “Remember.”

May it provide a bit soul food for your Tuesday.

Remember
Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

About the image:  The postcard above was sent to me by HannahsMommy07 on swap-bot for a “Postcards with a Prompt” swap. I have no information about the artist, but this postcard has been waiting to be shared for almost two years. Eek!

Wiser Birds

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Garden Dweller: Blue Tit by Hannah Dale

When I was a teen, I maintained an inspiration notebook in which I wrote poems and quotes that I considered beautiful. I still have the notebook [and I still copy beautiful words into notebooks]. As I flipped through the notebook while chatting with my baby sister earlier today, my eyes fell on the short poem below. I was young then, drawn to the words, not always the writer of those words, so I have no idea who W. Johnson is, and I have no information about the poem. I tried the search gods, but they failed me. Still, here’s the poem–short, sweet, cogent.

From Wiser Birds
W. Johnson

Rare the songs from
wiser birds,
yet the sweeter still.

About the image: The adorable blue tit above came from Love Noter Angela H. She sent it late last summer and I’ve been looking forward to an opportunity to share it. The birdie was designed by Hannah Dale of Wrendale Designs. The designs are inspired by the British Countryside. Purchases benefit the National Trust of the United Kingdom.

The Blessing of the Interim

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“Sunset Glow over Leifeng Pagoda.” Photo by Hu Xiaoyang

I’m sharing a poem today that Tee, one of my besties, sent to me two weeks ago. “In the Interim Time,” written by Irish priest-poet-philosopher John O’Donohue (1956-2008), carries a timely message.

Corona times are challenging in one way or another, and many of us want to get past these moments so we can get on with our “normal lives.” But what if we can’t or, more importantly, shouldn’t return to our normals?

We fight and fret trying to hang on to what is old when something new is being born. Donohue’s poem shows us there’s something we need in the “interim,” something hopeful, and something that prepares us for the new.

In the Interim Time
John O’Donohue

When near the end of day, life has drained
Out of light, and it is too soon
For the mind of night to have darkened things,

No place looks like itself, loss of outline
Makes everything look strangely in-between,
Unsure of what has been, or what might come.

In this wan light, even trees seem groundless.
In a while it will be night, but nothing
Here seems to believe the relief of darkness.

You are in this time of the interim
Where everything seems withheld.

The path you took to get here has washed out;
The way forward is still concealed from you.

“The old is not old enough to have died away;
The new is still too young to be born.”

You cannot lay claim to anything;
In this place of dusk,
Your eyes are blurred;
And there is no mirror.

Everyone else has lost sight of your heart
And you can see nowhere to put your trust;
You know you have to make your own way through.

As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.

What is being transfigured here in your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.

from To Bless the Space Between Us (2008)

About the image: The postcard above was sent to me in 2011 from Jiayi, a postcrosser in China. The card shows a view of the West Lake in Hangzhou.

“Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church”

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Please note:  WordPress coding is misbehaving, so forgive me if the line breaks are rather random and ill-placed in this post. I’ve followed all the rules, but I get a different result each time. :-/

Chapel of Peace, Whippoorwill Academy and Village, Ferguson, North Carolina. 2012

Emily Dickinson’s Poem 236, “Some keep the Sabbath going to Church,” is appropriate for our Corona times. We tune into virtual services, but they’re not the same. After all, we attend services for reasons beyond a sermon and a song.

If you’re missing fellowship with other believers, try spending time with God in nature. “All the earth worships [Him] and sings praises to [Him]” (Psalm 66:4), so you will not be in fellowship alone. Maybe, you’ll find that you’ve needed this type of worship also.

Emily Dickinson

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church (Poem 236)

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –
I keep it, staying at Home –
With a Bobolink for a Chorister –
And an Orchard, for a Dome –

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –
I, just wear my Wings –
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton – sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman –
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last –
I’m going, all along.

About the image: The “Chapel of Peace” is an older image. It was featured on the blog about seven years ago.

“When Giving Is All We Have”

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Terrance Osborne, “Front Line”

This morning as we began our final Shakespeare session for the semester (sad face), one of my students requested prayer for the nurses who are suffering under the strain of watching far too many patients die as a result of COVID-19. Just moments before that, I read a Facebook post in which one of my friends, Dr. Scharmaine Lawson, a Nurse Practitioner and author, announced that after prayerful consideration, she’s heading to New York City to help with the COVID-19 relief effort there.

I often think about the health care professionals who are on the front line of this thing day after day after day. No matter how well-trained they are, no matter how often they see death, it is still inexplicably HARD.  The connections between nurse and patient or doctor and patient–however brief–matter, and every death carries emotional weight. With COVID-19 doctors and nurses are bearing witness to far more than the “usual” and they are still out there, weighed down with the grief and burden of so much loss, fighting to save lives.

Some might wonder why someone like Dr. Lawson, a busy NP with a booming practice and a very full life of her own, would uproot and rush into this daunting challenge. Albert RÍos’ poem provides the answers—not only for why we give in the big ways but also why we do so in our smaller, daily interactions.

When Giving Is All We Have
Alberto RÍos

One river gives
Its journey to the next.

We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made

Something greater from the difference.

About this poem, RÍos wrote:

This is a poem of thanks to those who live lives of service, which, I think, includes all of us—from the large measure to the smallest gesture, from care-giving to volunteerism to being an audience member or a reader.  I’ve been able to offer these words to many groups, not only as a poem but also as a recognition. We give for so many reasons, and are bettered by it.  –from poets.org

Thank you to our health care professionals and to all our public servants and other essential workers for whom the stay-at-home order does not apply.  Thank you to all of you who give daily in your own spaces, outside your own spaces, and “in-between” spaces. We are making something new, something beautiful when we give.

About the image: The image above is the work of New Orleans artist, Terrance Osborne. He created Front Line—a nod to Rosie the Riveter—“to show the men and women on the front line that we love and support them.” [Did you catch the fleur de lis–symbol of New Orleans?] Osborne generously offered the image above as a free phone screen saver and gave 1000 posters to local hospitals. A lithograph ($75 signed; $40 unsigned) can be purchased via his website. To see more of this phenomenal artist’s work, please go to his website. You’ll feel like you’ve just taken a tour of my beloved hometown.

“Beyond the Gates of Sight”

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“At the School for the Blind.” Poem by Shari Wagner

I received this poem on a postcard today! My Love Notes friend Fran sent this gem, featuring the poem of an author from her beloved state, Indiana. It got a little scratched during its travels, but the postal tattoos add a bit of artistic flair. Don’t you think?

The poem, “At the School for the Blind,” was written by Shari Wagner, Indiana’s fifth Poet Laureate. In case you find it difficult to read the “enhanced” postcard, here are the words:

“Poetry is a river,”
a boys says, his fingers
skimming the rippled
surface. A girl enters
her dream, a boat
to lift us over fields.

It’s natural as a dance
how students guide
each other to the mike

and back. So many
journeys from this
stone castle to the hills

where Sun dwells,
a house beyond
the gates of sight.

For Bonnie Maurer

According to the notation on the back of the postcard, the poem was part of Shared Spaces/Shared Voices, a public art project that infused Indianapolis’ public transportation system with literary art and spoken word performances. The poetry and prose were written by writers living in Indiana. The project was managed by the Arts Council of Indianapolis and funding was provided by the Indianapolis Cultural Development Commission.

What If We Called a Rose a Pear?

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Today’s poetic offering is not technically a poem, but the lines [below] from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet are written in verse form–specifically in blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter). You remember that from high school English, right? The words, spoken by Juliet to Romeo, contain arguably the most famous “rose lines” ever written–though Gertrude Stein’s “a rose is a rose is a rose” offers stiff competition.

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father, and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

[…]

‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O! be some other name:
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

About the image: The roses above are from my mother’s garden. No matter what time of year we visit, the roses greet us. This photo was shot in mid-February on my iPhone, a couple of weeks before the CV madness. I’m grateful we made the trip when we did.

Soar, Sister!

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Believe it or not–I actually made a general plan of poems/poets to share on the blog this month. However, I can count on less than one hand the number of times I stuck to the plan. Today, my plan for sharing a longish poem by Nikky Finney transformed to sharing the shortish poem below by George Douglas Johnson (1880?-1966).

Johnson was one of the writers featured in my [so-far-unfinished] Women of the Harlem Renaissance series a couple of years ago. The poem seems fitting for my present circumstance and mood–cooped up in a small space in my home office–cornered by books, research, notes, and creative projects–working feverishly toward freedom from all the demands, ready to fly.

Your World
Georgia Douglas Johnson
Your world is as big as you make it.
I know, for I used to abide
In the narrowest nest in a corner,
My wings pressing close to my side.

But I sighted the distant horizon
Where the skyline encircled the sea
And I throbbed with a burning desire
To travel this immensity.

I battered the cordons around me
And cradled my wings on the breeze,
Then soared to the uttermost reaches
With rapture, with power, with ease!

About the image: The postcard featured in this post was sent to me a decade ago by a swapper named Noni, an artist who seemingly no longer participates on swap-bot. I don’t know much about the art, but I assume Noni made the postcard. She wrote on the back of the card our beloved Maya Angelou’s poem, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,”–a poem that doesn’t feel as hopeful as Johnson’s but is nevertheless moving.

“To the Moon”

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Moonlight Silhouette by Suzette R.

It’s Monday. It’s late, and I have about three more hours of work to complete before I can allow sleep to find me. This seems a perfect time to share British Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley’s (1792-1822) “To the Moon.”

To the Moon
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

About the image: The striking “moon art” was created by my Love Notes friend, Suzette R. She sent the postcard to me many moons ago (pun intended). I’ve carried the postcard in the front pocket of my daily journal–the one I take almost everywhere–for almost three years. Why? Because I love the moon!