Poetry Friday: Spring Morning by Marion Strobel

Spring mornings — they're in full swing here and I couldn't be more gleeful. I used to think of autumn as my favorite season, and maybe I still do. There's nothing like that first moment when you sense the heat of summer breaking apart, its shell cracking, and you embrace the respite to come, the cool breezes that will revive your summer-wilted self.

But the promises that come with spring offer a unique form of happiness. Everything is fresh and expansive, everything is possible. Both seasons offer their own brand of rebirth. A chance to embrace enormous changes, to dream up a future that looks different, could be different, will be different. 

"O day — if I could cup my hands and drink of you," wrote Marion Strobel. Today is such a day. And everything in a weary world is possible. 

Read more about Marion Strobel here. 

Spring Morning

by Marion Strobel

O day—if I could cup my hands and drink of you,

And make this shining wonder be

A part of me!

O day! O day!

You lift and sway your colors on the sky

Till I am crushed with beauty. Why is there

More of reeling sunlit air

Than I can breathe? Why is there sound

In silence? Why is a singing wound

About each hour?

And perfume when there is no flower?

O day! O Day! How may I press

Nearer to loveliness?

(This poem is in the public domain.)

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The Poetry Friday roundup is being hosted by Matt Forrest Esenwine at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme. 

Photo credit: jggrz, Pixabay

Poetry Friday: Dear Poet

 

"I think it is important to be reminded every once in a while that there are 

all kinds of beings having all sorts of experiences that are different from mine." 

— Zoe, a ninth grader, somewhere in America, April, 2016 

"When I put words down on a page, I am listening to their music, their rhythms 

and quiet places, their moods. A poem on the page is like sheet music: it's the score 

for an experience that happens only once it's been played. The instrument is the 

reader's own life and tongue and ears. And just as with music, the poem is never 

exactly the same." 

— Jane Hirshfield, in response to Zoe 

(These excerpts are part of the "Dear Poet" collection at Poets.org.) 

I didn't have anything planned for Poetry Friday today. April is National Poetry Month and I always have such good intentions. As much as I love poetry, you'd think I'd carve out the time to do something unique and noteworthy for NPM but I always end up being so busy in April. I'm usually teaching for Brave Writer, I'm currently writing another book, and then there's all the other minutiae of life that seems to expand to fill time, no matter how much I try to simplify. I'm resigned to being an NPM failure of sorts. 

This morning, I had the familiar, Oh-my-gosh-it's-already-Poetry-Friday-again feeling. Maybe I'll do something for Poetry Friday related to my birthday, (which is this weekend), I thought. That would be fun and different. Or maybe I'll write something about being too busy to tackle National Poetry Month in precisely the way it deserves to be tackled. 

At Poets.org, I typed "busyness" into the search bar. That circuitously led me to the beauty of the "Dear Poet" series, specifically to a set of letters written in April of 2016 to Jane Hirshfield. Even more specifically and serendipitously, I landed on a letter from a girl named Zoe, written on my birthday five years ago, to Hirshfield, who sent Zoe a lovely reply, which I hope and have a feeling will be treasured forever by a certain former ninth-grader. 

Zoe is probably in college now, and I hope she is still writing to poets. I'm still busy, still teaching and writing, but somehow Zoe, Jane Hirshfield, and I met at an intersection today. Poetry has a magical way of bringing people together and sparking unexpected conversations. Today, Zoe and Jane have me pondering "all kinds of beings having all sorts of experiences that are different from mine," and "the score for an experience that happens only once it's been played." They've got me thinking about the nature of busyness, and the beauty of solitude, of a thing that "slips into the heart/without hurry, as if it had never been." 

To read the poem that prompted Zoe to write to Jane Hirshfield, go here, 

for "Three Foxes by the Edge of the field at Twilight."

Go here for all the 2016 "Dear Poet" letters, and see one from an eleventh-grade girl who begins, "I feel that you are the kind of person who would understand what it's like to be overwhelmed by the very act of being."

Go here for links to all past years in the "Dear Poet" series. 

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The roundup this week is at Reading to the Core. 

(Photo courtesy of Erik Karits at Unsplash.) 

Poetry Friday: The round-up is at Jama Rattigan's place

 

My day is packed, so no time to even throw together a post. Fortunately, though, Jama is in charge of all-things-poetry this week and you can visit her for the round-up at: 

Jama's Alphabet Soup

Enjoy the feast! 

Poetry Friday: Today by Billy Collins

Soon, so very soon, I want a day such as this one. 

Today 

 by Billy Collins 

 If ever there were a spring day so perfect, 

 so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze 

 that it made you want to throw 

 open all the windows in the house 

 and unlatch the door to the canary's cage, 

 indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

....

 (Read the rest here, at the Poetry Foundation.) 

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The anything-but-indifferent Tabatha is hosting the round-up this week 

at Tabatha Yeatts: The Opposite of Indifference 

Happy Easter!

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning,
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.
And behold, there was a great earthquake;
for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven,
approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it.
His appearance was like lightning
and his clothing was white as snow.
The guards were shaken with fear of him
and became like dead men.
Then the angel said to the women in reply,
“Do not be afraid!
I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified.
He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said.
Come and see the place where he lay.
Then go quickly and tell his disciples,
‘He has been raised from the dead,
and he is going before you to Galilee;
there you will see him.’
Behold, I have told you.”
Then they went away quickly from the tomb,
fearful yet overjoyed,
and ran to announce this to his disciples.
And behold, Jesus met them on their way and greeted them.
They approached, embraced his feet, and did him homage.
Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid.
Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee,
and there they will see me.”

~~ Mt 28:1-10


Painting: Bouguereau, The Three Marys at the Tomb