Poetry Friday: "For What Binds Us" by Jane Hirshfield

 

Like you — I'm guessing, but hey, I think I know you pretty well — I'm stunned that 2022 is coming to a close. Every cliche I've ever heard about age and time is true. Time really does fly, the days really are long while the years actually are short, and time truly is a blur. The fountain of cliches is a fountain of truth.

As this year ends, I'm thinking about the blur that is 2022 and about what holds it together for me. And as I often do, I'm turning to Jane Hirshfield. When I read this one, what I feel down to my bones is persistent, ferocious love. 

This one's for you, Atticus. 

For What Binds Us

by Jane Hirshfield 

There are names for what binds us:

strong forces, weak forces.

Look around, you can see them:

the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,

nails rusting into the places they join,

joints dovetailed on their own weight.

The way things stay so solidly

wherever they've been set down—

....

(Read the rest here, at Poets.org.) 

~~~~~~~~~~

Join Patricia Franz at Reverie for the final poetry gathering of 2022 and see what binds those of us who love this community. 

Photo credit: Kevin Quarshie, Pexels

Poetry Friday: "Noel" by Anne Porter

This is a lovely and companionably haunting piece by Anne Porter, who did not have her poetry published until she was 83 years old. Her first book of poetry was a finalist for the National Book Award and over the next 17 years, Porter would see her work anthologized and widely featured. She died in 2011, shortly before her 100th birthday. 

Are you an unpublished poet? It's never too late. Wishing you "ragged miracles" and "flowering weeds of poetry" this holiday season. 

Noel
by Anne Porter

When snow is shaken
From the balsam trees
And they're cut down
And brought into our houses

When clustered sparks
Of many-colored fire
Appear at night
In ordinary windows

We hear and sing
The customary carols

They bring us ragged miracles
And hay and candles
And flowering weeds of poetry

....

(Read the rest here, at Poets.org)

~~~~~~~~~~

Irene Latham has the round-up this week at Live Your Poem. 

Photo credit: Jeswin Thomas as Pexels. 

Poetry Friday: I'm hosting!

Photo by Jodi Pelman

Welcome to Poetry Friday! 

If you've never made the rounds, here's an old post from Renée LaTulippe (some links may be out of date) that will tell you about this bloggy, poetic gathering. And here's an older article at the Poetry Foundation from Susan Thomsen of Chicken Spaghetti. 

Here's another fun (old!)* article from Susan about poetry and homeschoolers, in which she mentioned one of my daughters who, at age four, was enchanted by Emily Dickinson. A funny coincidence about that article: it was written way back in 2008 and Susan also interviewed Julie Bogart, of Brave Writer for that piece. Nine years later, Julie and I would cross paths again. In 2017, when Brave Writer was growing tremendously, I was lucky enough to be hired as one of their writing coaches, a part-time job that I still do and still love. 

On to this week's offerings! 

I think this lovely piece by Michael Blumenthal could alternatively be titled, "Surely the hedgehog" (from lines 21-22) but I'll take "Be Kind" — both as a title and as a life suggestion, motto, and blueprint. 

As Blumenthal exhorts: 

Oh friends, take

whatever kindness you can find

and be profligate in its expenditure...

Here's to poetry and profligate kindness. Happy Poetry Friday! 

*Are all the articles about Poetry Friday old? Do we need to write new ones? Anyone, anyone? 

Be Kind

by Michael Blumenthal 

Not merely because Henry James said
there were but four rules of life—
be kind be kind be kind be kind—but
because it's good for the soul, and,
what's more, for others, it may be
that kindness is our best audition
for a worthier world, and, despite
the vagueness and uncertainty of
its recompense, a bird may yet wander
into a bush before our very houses,

....

(Read the rest here, at Poets.org.) 

Mr. Linky is here to gather the goodness and scatter it throughout the poetic, bloggy neighborhood. Please join us with a link or as a reader — your choice. 

Poetry Friday: Hope

It's Advent — a season of hope — so I thought a little Emily Dickinson was in order. The photo is of an ornament that my dear friend Danae gave me a couple of Decembers ago. It seems like both yesterday and a thousand years ago that my parents were so sick with Covid. There was so much going on, so many medical questions, decisions to be made every day. Danae brought me a Care package one afternoon and this ornament was in it. Every time I look at it (Hope! The cardinal!)I remember feeling both alone and very loved and surrounded during that time. 

The felt ornament to the right is one I've had for years. That one was a gift from my friend Jenn. We've never met in person but we connected online in what seems like another era: the early days of blogging, when lots of us blogging moms somehow made the time to both blog and visit other blogs. One year, a handful of us did a Christmas ornament exchange. I was the lucky recipient of Jenn's beautiful hand-embroidered work. A coffee cup, no less! She gets me! Jenn and I are still in touch and my Jenn Coffee Cup always gives me hope, too — the internet may be a cesspool, but it has brought me people from across the country, across the ocean, and across time and space. It's TARDIS-y that way and has always delivered traveling companions of the highest caliber into my life. 

(Poetry Friday, anyone? Another beautiful example of connections and friendships I cherish. Carry on, internet! Keep connecting me with the highest caliber. I'm forever grateful.) 

The quote is from a Mary Englebreit page-a-day calendar (gorgeous illustration) that Atticus and the girls gave me. I found this page torn off the calendar and left on my desk. ❤️  I'd have to blog for days to cover all the ways that Atticus and Anne-with-an-e, Betsy Ray, and Ramona have given me hope over the years. Endless, bottomless hope and courage.  

What's giving you hope this season? 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Michelle Kogan has the round-up this week. 

Wishing you a hopeful third week of Advent! 

Poetry Friday: December Poem-a-Day (curated by Arthur Sze) and "Prayer" by Jorie Graham

Three weeks ago, I shared Arthur Sze's "The Shapes of Leaves" and now, serendipitously, I see that Sze is the December guest editor for Poem-a-Day at Poets.org. Lovely! 

Here's their interview with him about his curation process and his own poetry. In that interview, they asked what poem in the Poets.org collection he would send readers to: 

Poets.org: ... If you could direct readers to one poem in our collection at Poets.org that you haven’t curated, what would it be and why?

Sze: I would direct readers to the poem “Prayer” by Jorie Graham. And it’s a short poem; it’s a marvelous poem that begins with observing a stream of minnows. And I love how it moves from the visible to the invisible world; how, in its syntax, it enacts a swaying and large, deep, generous vision of life. And she gets to say really large, fundamentally powerful things that are harnessed, that come by surprise through looking again at this stream of minnows. And I find it a marvelous poem, so I want to send readers to that.

Upon that recommendation, I offer you Jorie Graham's "Prayer." Some of my favorite lines from the poem are: 

Nobody gets

what they want. Never again are you the same. The longing

is to be pure. What you get is to be changed. 

Prayer

by Jorie Graham

Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands, swirl

themselves, each a minuscule muscle, but also, without the

way to create current, making of their unison (turning, re-

                                                infolding,

entering and exiting their own unison in unison) making of themselves a

visual current, one that cannot freight or sway by

minutest fractions the water’s downdrafts and upswirls, the

dockside cycles of finally-arriving boat-wakes, there where

they hit deeper resistance, water that seems to burst into

itself (it has those layers) a real current though mostly

invisible sending into the visible (minnows) arrowing

                         motion that forces change—

(Read the rest here, at Poets.org.) 

~~~~~~~~~~

Catherine Flynn has the Poetry Friday round-up today at Reading to the Core. 

And don't forget to sign up, if you haven't already, for "Poem-a-Day." 

(Photo credit: Suzy Hazelwood at Pexels.)