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National Poetry Month


dinneR

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The first poem I had to memorize, in first grade at a Catholic school, was Trees by Joyce Kilmer.  I've never forgotten it as I have with most poems except for a few of Robert Frost favorites.

We first graders had to suppress a giggle when we got to "flowing breast" in the second verse:

Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
 
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
 
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
 
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
 
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
 
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
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17 years ago I wrote this. With the impending invasion of Iraq, I was in a funk where internal struggles were only beginning to come to light. I was only beginning to share my heart with a counselor and the complexities of struggle, whether on the international scene or in a very personal light, were crashing in.
 
There is a ‘triple’ entendre in these 17 couplets that embraces my life.
 
 “The Game”
 
With fevered brow and thoughts of war
Redeeming time, a settled score;
 
Again she calls, panicked and strewn
Her mind tormented, seeking too soon
 
What I cannot give. Yet in her state
Seeks resolution, but can’t abate
 
The childhood games; one up on you,
A repertoire played right on cue.
 
The phone still rings, forlorn at night
I close my eyes, ignore the plight.
 
And yet my heart does yearn to see
Her mind at rest, but can it be?
 
When life deals cards, we each our hand,
And calls to play a final stand
 
It beckons, “call,” as time draws near
and in its wake we loathe, we fear.
 
Knowing full well we cannot see
What we cannot hold or cannot be;
 
That shade of loss, a fearful plight
Someone of flesh of thought and sight
 
Whose vision clears and thoughts dispel;
A game surreal, we seek to quell.
 
I touch the pad; a familiar tone
It softly rings, “Noone at home.”
 
So for this night I lay to rest
Resolve and dread of my own quest.
 
And with the morrow I pray to see
A path more fair, a way to be
 
That light she needs, serene and calm;
And play the game, a reasoned psalm.
 
But with weary heart and wounded soul
And spoken truth my only goal
 
I pen these words, a hope to be
Much more than my soliloquy.
 
-Me,  March 17, 2003.
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I write poetry in order to properly understand what I'm feeling...as well as hoping that I can communicate these feelings to others. I find growing old difficult.

 

The visit

This time when she came

I asked her to give me a hug...

a thing I've never done before...

but I needed to hold her again

as I did so long ago.....

when I would scoop her up..

and breathe her in

and know that in this moment

nothing in the world could mean more

than this wriggling bundle.

 

But now I am old

and certainty is a stranger to me

days pass without me knowing their name...

I doubt....everything

and so I asked... though this was hard for me

knowing she would mark this well and see the why of it....

this need to hold her close..to be certain 

of this one thing.

 

 

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2 hours ago, onbike1939 said:

I write poetry in order to properly understand what I'm feeling...as well as hoping that I can communicate these feelings to others. I find growing old difficult.

 

The visit

This time when she came

I asked her to give me a hug...

a thing I've never done before...

but I needed to hold her again

as I did so long ago.....

when I would scoop her up..

and breathe her in

and know that in this moment

nothing in the world could mean more

than this wriggling bundle.

 

But now I am old

and certainty is a stranger to me

days pass without me knowing their name...

I doubt....everything

and so I asked... though this was hard for me

knowing she would mark this well and see the why of it....

this need to hold her close..to be certain 

of this one thing.

 

 

I felt all that you poured into this, @onbike1939. Maybe it is shared emotion, maybe my age, or maybe my empathic tendencies.  Well done. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Introduction to Poetry

BY BILLY COLLINS

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

 

or press an ear against its hive.

 

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

 

or walk inside the poem’s room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

 

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

 

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

 

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

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                    Snowdrops

All over my garden promises are being made..

in half-hidden corners we hear the whispers..

it comes….Spring is coming….it comes...

a day past and there was nothing to see….

yet here they are…. foolhardy messengers

newly born from the still-cold earth

dressed in green and pristine white

they dare to speak of new life to come

when all around them is dead... and desolate

 

 

and we do not doubt these promises….but choose to believe...

we believe for it has always been so….

and we forget that this is momentous...astonishing…..

and so the miracle becomes common-place.

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