Poetry Friday: To the New Year (and to W.S. Merwin)

We're already a full month into 2020, but I'm still reviewing 2019: summarizing, reflecting, looking back before I look ahead. I'm still figuring out and thinking about resolutions (I sometimes make them, sometimes do not. I'm a Questioner, according to Gretchen Rubin's "Four Tendencies" framework, so I make resolutions when I've decided they make sense, when they address a question I've been pondering.)

It takes me awhile, in other words, to catch up with time.

So today I'm sharing a Merwin favorite. I especially love the last three lines:

and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible

We lost this marvelous poet in 2019. He was 91. Read more about him here and here.


To the New Year
By W.S. Merwin

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
....

(Read the whole thing here, at The Poetry Foundation.)

~~~~~~~~

Jone Rush MacCulloch has the round-up at Deo Writer.

Poetry Friday: "Dust of Snow" by Robert Frost

A little bit of perfection, so needed in January, from Robert Frost today: 

Dust of Snow
by Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

(This poem is in the public domain.)

~~~~~

Kathryn Apel has the round-up this week. 

(Learn more about Poetry Friday here.) 

Poetry Friday: New Year's Morning

I'm a little late with this reflection on New Year's morning, but as Helen Hunt Jackson concludes,
"The new is but the old come true/Each sunrise sees a new year born."

Happy New Year, and Happy Every New Day.


New Year's Morning
by Helen Hunt Jackson

Only a night from old to new!
Only a night, and so much wrought!
The Old Year's heart all weary grew,
But said: "The New Year rest has brought."
The Old Year's hopes its heart laid down,
As in a grave; but, trusting, said:
"The blossoms of the New Year's crown
Bloom from the ashes of the dead."
The Old Year's heart was full of greed;
With selfishness it longed and ached,
And cried: "I have not half I need.
My thirst is bitter and unslaked.
But to the New Year's generous hand
All gifts in plenty shall return;
True love it shall understand;
By all my failures it shall learn.
I have been reckless; it shall be
Quiet and calm and pure of life.
I was a slave; it shall go free,
And find sweet peace where I leave strife."
Only a night from old to new!
Never a night such changes brought.
The Old Year had its work to do;
No New Year miracles are wrought.

Always a night from old to new!
Night and the healing balm of sleep!
Each morn is New Year's morn come true,
Morn of a festival to keep.
All nights are sacred nights to make
Confession and resolve and prayer;
All days are sacred days to wake
New gladness in the sunny air.
Only a night from old to new;
Only a sleep from night to morn.
The new is but the old come true;
Each sunrise sees a new year born.

(This poem is in the public domain.)

~~~~~

Sally Murphy has the round-up this weekend.

P.S. Have you done a round-up of your favorite books of 2019? I shared mine here.

The Year in Reading

About this time last year, I said I wanted to up my Goodreads game. I joined Goodreads eons ago, then never used it. I'm still not using it a lot. I rarely interact with other people there, and I keep forgetting about the social media aspect of it. I do log most of my books there now, partly because I'm a visual person and I love seeing this little grid at the end of the year. :) 

Some of my favorites from 2019: 

Favorite Fiction: 

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger 

The River by Peter Heller 

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig 

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee 

Compelling stories told in gorgeous prose. Whenever I read Leif Enger, I repeatedly bother people around me with, "Hey! Stop what you're doing! Listen to this sentence." 

Favorite Non-Fiction: 

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb 

Inheritance by Dani Shapiro 

Why We Dream by Alice Robb

Becoming by Michelle Obama 

In Memory of Bread by Paul Graham 

Insightful, intriguing, and interesting. (And we found a new way to make gluten-free birthday cake, so huzzah.) 

Favorite Spiritual Writing: 

The Thorny Grace of It by Brian Doyle 

Stumble by Heather King 

No one could write like Brian Doyle did. His prose and his insights bowled me over every time. And then there's Heather King — Doyle wrote the foreword for her Stumble; he clearly knew a kindred spirit when he read one. ) I'm so sad that he's gone. I pray that Heather King will be around for a long time to come. 

Favorite Re-reads: 

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury 

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead 

I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron 

Dandelion Wine touches something in me; it's that nudge to remember that we're really alive, and to ask ourselves what we're doing with that knowledge. When You Reach Me is a little bit of brilliance that I appreciate more every time I read it. I miss Nora Ephron, so I just have to reread her and laugh out loud every now and then. 

Favorite Books Middle Grade or YA: 

The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser 

Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass 

Daddy Longlegs by Jean Webster 

Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk 

I love that my daughters (adult and almost-adult) still recommend these books to me. 

Favorite Book About Education 

The Brave Learner by Julie Bogart

And not just because I work for her these days as a writing coach. It's a terrific book full of the kind of stuff that our homeschool has been full-to-brimming with for almost twenty years. I've always smiled and nodded at Julie's philosophies: "Yes, us, too, Julie, us too!" 

Least Favorite Book: 

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides 

Oh. Dear. This kind of thing just isn't my genre, I guess. 

~~~~~

What did you read in 2019? 

Poetry Friday: Journey of the Magi

What else could I post on this Friday before the feast of the Epiphany? It's my annual trek with Eliot.

Journey of the Magi
by T.S. Eliot 

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
....

It's an astounding poem. If you've never read it you must go read the whole thing, then listen to Eliot read it, too. (The link is here.)

If you're you're not an Eliot fan, give a read-through anyway. (Remember, he's not responsible for that current cinematic caper about cats. Shudder. I like to think he'd be duly horrified.) Then try to answer these questions with me:

How does he do it?
How did he haul around the reputation of being too scholarly and too philosophical to write poetry, and then do what he does in this poem? 

This poem is such a perfect melding of earthly earthiness and supernatural doings. Eliot captures that down-to-your-bones discomfort, a life-shattering event, the squirming, the revelation, the discovery that this isn't really my home -- that knowledge which at first is both comforting and terrifying.

~~~~~

The round-up today is at Carol's Corner.