Friday, December 31, 2010

Poetry Friday: On the Seventh Day of Christmas I Posted This Gorgeous Anne Porter Poem


Atticus found Anne Porter last year and she's an ongoing gift. Here's an excerpt from a Christmas poem:

Noel 
by Anne Porter

...The customary carols

They bring us ragged miracles
And hay and candles
And flowering weeds of poetry
That are loved all the more
Because they are so common

But there are carols
That carry phrases
Of the haunting music
Of the other world
A music wild and dangerous
As a prophet's message

Or the fresh truth of children
Who though they come to us
From our own bodies

Are altogether new
With their small limbs
And birdlike voices

(The whole poem is here at The Writer's Almanac.)

~~~~~

The Poetry Friday round up is at Carols' Corner today. 

3 comments:

Melanie Bettinelli said...

I love it. Especially:

"But there are carols
That carry phrases
Of the haunting music
Of the other world"

Oh yes.

Carol said...

Karen,
This is beautiful. I had never heard of Anne Porter, but you have made me want to hunt down more of her poems. Thanks for sharing her with us.

Mary Lee said...

This is exactly how I come to feel about carols by the end of the season -- so much ordinariness and kitch and yet...the holy and the haunting, too.