Poetry Friday: When a poem gobsmacks

It's surprising sometimes, the way Poetry Friday just works. You think of a poet, and you're drawn to that person, their poem, that moment. And it's the perfect poem for that imperfect day. 

This morning, coming late to the Poetry Friday party, I thought, "What shall I throw into the mix? What about some Barbara Crooker? What about that one mentioning glorious things around us?" These are days when I find myself looking for glorious moments in the smallest of things. 

I found the poem and was gobsmacked. I'd completely forgotten that this poem swerves into mention of her mother, medically struggling day by day. I looked at the screen, blinked, looked left, then right, as if I'd see the source of this coincidence. I didn't see anything, but I feel it. All around us. 

Later today I'll go to the hospital where my mother, too, is having more bad days than good, where I, too, will look around and try, try fervently, to remember all that is glorious around us. 

All That Is Glorious Around Us

is not, for me, these grand vistas, sublime peaks, mist-filled
overlooks, towering clouds, but doing errands on a day
of driving rain, staying dry inside the silver skin of the car,
160,000 miles, still running just fine. Or later,
sitting in a café warmed by the steam
from white chicken chili, two cups of dark coffee,

....

(Read the rest of Barbara Crooker's poem here.) 

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Wonderful, talented Susan Thomsen is hosting the Poetry Friday round-up this week at Chicken Spaghetti. 

Poetry Friday: Anne Porter, "Living Things"

I find Anne Porter utterly charming. 

Porter began seriously pursuing her poetry at the age of 64, after her husband, artist Fairfield Porter passed away in 1975. Her first collection of poetry was published 1994, when she was 83 years old. 

Read more about her here, at the Poetry Foundation. 

For a longer bio, go to Best American Poetry, where Porter, after being asked why she was still writing at her age, said that "art may be the only pursuit that old age can't wreck":

"You can't sing anymore, you can't dance anymore, you can't drive anymore — but you can still write." 

Here's to continuing to create living things in 2024. 

Living Things
by Anne Porter

(1911-2011) 

Our poems
Are like the wart-hogs
In the zoo
It's hard to say
Why there should be such creatures

But once our life gets into them
As sometimes happens
Our poems
Turn into living things
And there's no arguing
With living things

....

(Read the rest here.) 

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Tracey Kiff-Judson is hosting today. Join her as she ponders Monopoly pieces and pulls together the Poetry Friday round-up. 

Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

Poetry Friday: "Journey of the Magi" by T.S. Eliot

Apparently, I haven't posted this one since 2020. (I thought I predictably posted it every single year but apparently, I am less predictable than I think.) Therefore, here is my not-quite-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,

The very dead of winter.’

And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

Lying down in the melting snow.

There were times we regretted

The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling

And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,

And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,

And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly

And the villages dirty and charging high prices:

A hard time we had of it.

At the end we preferred to travel all night,

Sleeping in snatches,

With the voices singing in our ears, saying

That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,

Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;

With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,

And three trees on the low sky,

And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,

Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,

And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,

But there was no information, and so we continued

And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon

Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,

And I would do it again, but set down

This set down

This: were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.

(This poem is in the public domain.) 

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What an astonishing poem, a melding of earthiness and supernatural doings. Eliot captures that down-to-the-bones discomfort of a life-shattering event, an alien revelation, the combination of comfort and terror. 

You can also listen to Eliot read it here, at The Poetry Archive. 

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The round-up this week is being hosted by the delightful and lovely Marcie Flinchum Atkins.