Charles Wright, Extraordinary Poet

Got a used first edition in perfect shape.  Thank God for used books.

 

As often happens with magnificent poetry, I wanted to burn everything I'd written after reading this book, especially the title poem, "Buffalo Yoga".  Holy, holy, holy.  Thank you, Erin (you were so right about this poem...should be read aloud), for introducing me to this poet.  There is no joy better than discovering a new poet, especially through a friend.  I owe you one.  :-)

 

 

 

My good book karma continues with this book which I got in the mail today.  I ordered a used copy from Amazon and ended up with a pristeen, AUTOGRAPHED copy of this book.  I laugh because this happens all the time...it's part of the mystique of buying used books.  You never know what you'll get: love notes, autographs, photographs, bookmarks, more notes...I love them all.

 

I can only say this today:  READ CHARLES WRIGHT's POETRY!

 

I tried and tried to pick out a poem to share, but I couldn't make up my mind.  "Buffalo Yoga" is a long, delicious poem and I couldn't break out a piece no more than I can cut a piece of the sky.  So I looked around and found this slice of a poem from his poem titled, "Polaroids".  Of course, I was immediately drawn to the dragonfly imagery in the last verse...  Enjoy.

 

xo,

Marion

 

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From:  POLAROIDS by Charles Wright

 

The lapis lazuli dragonflies

                                             of postbelief, rising and falling near
The broken slab wood steps, now one by one, now in pairs,
Are not the dragonflies of death with their blue-black eyes.
These are the tiny ones, the stems, the phosphorescent,
Rising and falling like drowned playthings.
They come and they disappear. They come back and they disappear.

Horizon-hump of pine bristles on end toward the south,
Breath-stealer, cloudless drop cloth
Of sky,
             the great meadow beneath like a mirror face down in the earth,
Accepting nothing, giving it back.
We’ll go, as Mandelstam tells us, into a growing numbness of time,
Insoluble, as long as landscape, as indistinct.

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*Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam (1891 - 1938) was a Russian poet and essayist who lived in Russia during and after its revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school of poets.


Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Chasing the moon, 2009

 

 

INVICTUS
By William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

      Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

      I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

      My head is bloody, but unbowed.
 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

      Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

      Finds and shall find me unafraid.
 

It matters not how strait the gate,

      How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

      I am the captain of my soul.

 

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Spring is arriving late this year to the swamps. I let all of my precious potted plants die, so I'll be starting anew with fresh everything come Spring.  Thank God for seeds.  No flowers or blooms yet, only a few brave weeds. 

 

xo,

Marion

 

 

 Awake, thou wintry earth -
Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth
Your ancient gladness!
~Thomas Blackburn, "An Easter Hymn"

 

 

Notes on the Art of Poetry by Dylan Thomas

Illustration from Pinterest.  Me.

 

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Notes on the Art of Poetry

by Dylan Thomas

 

I could never have dreamt that there were such goings-on
in the world between the covers of books,
such sandstorms and ice blasts of words,
such staggering peace, such enormous laughter,
such and so many blinding bright lights,
splashing all over the pages
in a million bits and pieces
all of which were words, words, words,
and each of which were alive forever
in its own delight and glory and oddity and light.   -------------------------------    

I Love Learning New Words

The Snowfall Is So Silent by Miguel de Unamuno

from Pinterest

 

 

Today our snow is melting.  I'll miss it, but it was fun while it lasted...

 

 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

 

 

 

The Snowfall Is So Silent

by Miguel de Unamuno                                
translated by Robert Bly                        

The snowfall is so silent,
so slow,
bit by bit, with delicacy
it settles down on the earth
and covers over the fields.
The silent snow comes down
white and weightless; 
snowfall makes no noise,
falls as forgetting falls, 
flake after flake.
It covers the fields gently
while frost attacks them
with its sudden flashes of white;
covers everything with its pure
and silent covering;
not one thing on the ground
anywhere escapes it.
And wherever it falls it stays,
content and gay,
for snow does not slip off 
as rain does,
but it stays and sinks in.
The flakes are skyflowers,
pale lilies from the clouds,
that wither on earth.
They come down blossoming
but then so quickly
they are gone;
they bloom only on the peak,
above the mountains,
and make the earth feel heavier
when they die inside.
Snow, delicate snow,
that falls with such lightness 
on the head,
on the feelings,
come and cover over the sadness
that lies always in my reason.

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First Snow, Kerhonkson by Diane di Prima

 

 

Blizzard once again in the swamps today.

 

 

Neighborhood boy headed for the only hill with his wooden 'sled'.

 

Let it snow.  The deep South is a winter wonderland for the second time in a week.  Unheard of!  We sit and read and look up often, staring in wonder...  xo

 

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First Snow, Kerhonkson

By Diane di Prima b. 1934     

for Alan

 

This, then, is the gift the world has given me

(you have given me)

softly the snow

cupped in hollows

lying on the surface of the pond

matching my long white candles

which stand at the window

which will burn at dusk while the snow

fills up our valley

this hollow

no friend will wander down

no one arriving brown from Mexico

from the sunfields of California, bearing pot

they are scattered now, dead or silent

or blasted to madness

by the howling brightness of our once common vision

and this gift of yours—

white silence filling the contours of my life.

 

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Diane di Prima, “First Snow, Kerhonkson” from Pieces of a Song.

"Pieces of a Song" by the amazing Diane di Prima.

 

Ponder This:

". . . and my day, which nothing interrupts, is like a clock-face without hands. . ."  Rainer Maria Rilke, from "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge".

 

"Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life."  ~William Faulkner

 

 

 

 

Read Rilke.  He never disappoints. 

 

 

 

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Sophie, waking from a cat nap.

 

 

Dust of Snow by Robert Frost....We Have Snow!!!

It's snowing here for the first time in many, many moons.  The silence is awesome.  I woke at 2 a.m. and noticed the glow coming through a window.  It was the gorgeous, white, magical snow.  We got about three inches.  (Don't laugh, you yanks!)  I can't wait for the kids in the neighborhood to wake up and see this.  It'll probably be gone by tomorrow, but it's like a gift, a beautiful, rare gift from Mother Nature.  I immediately thought of one of my favorite Robert Frost poems.  Enjoy!  xo

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.

6:00 a.m. in the swamps of Louisiana....snow!

 

Only one of my cats would touch the snow...Gir, or course.  He's under my truck.

 

Natasha Blythe in the snow.

 

Let it snow...

 

 

 

 

 

Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman

An amazingly awesome book.

EVERY RIVEN THING
By Christian Wiman

God goes, belonging to every riven thing he's made
sing his being simply by being
the thing it is:
stone and tree and sky,
man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he's made,
means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
trying to will himself into a stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing he's made
there is given one shade
shaped exactly to the thing itself:
under the tree a darker tree;
under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He's made
the things that bring him near,
made the mind that makes him go.
A part of what man knows,
apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing he's made.

__________________________________________

rive

rīv/

verb

past participle: riven

1. 1.

   split or tear apart violently.

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Spearmint in red glass.  My Mint loves winter here in Louisiana.

 

 

Starlings in Winter by Mary Oliver

From the following poem by Mary Oliver.  Poster from Pinterest.   Starlings in Winter Chunky and noisy, but with stars in their black feathers, they spring from the telephone wire and instantly they are acrobats in the freezing wind. And now, in the theater of air, they swing over buildings, dipping and rising; they float like one stippled star that opens, becomes for a moment fragmented, then closes again; and you watch and you try but you simply can't imagine how they do it with no articulated instruction, no pause, only the silent confirmation that they are this notable thing, this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin over and over again, full of gorgeous life. Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us, even in the leafless winter, even in the ashy city. I am thinking now of grief, and of getting past it; I feel my boots trying to leave the ground, I feel my heart pumping hard, I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings. "Starlings in Winter" by Mary Oliver, from Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays.   ------------------------------------------------------   It is frigid here in the deep South, as in under 20 degrees last night. I do not like the cold or I would live 'up North'.  I envy those of you in Canada and all points North who can handle the snow and cold.  Kudos from a certified Southern Belle sitting here wearing three sets of clothes and three pairs of socks...and a sock hat.  Yes, I have heat.  LOL!!!   I'm busy reading (a re-read of the magnificent book, "The Wood Wife", by Terri Windling) and loving 2014.  I'm learning Origami and teaching myself to draw.  I'm in love with Prismacolor Colored Pencils and Watercolor Pencils.  You're never too old to learn something new.  And thank God for gift cards.  :-)  Happy 2014, again.    xo, Marion   "The Old Year has gone.  Let the dead past bury its own dead.  The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time.  All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months! " ~Edward Payson Powell from Pinterest