Farewell, Fall

Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side

Reluctance, by Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods

   And over the walls I have wended;

I have climbed the hills of view

   And looked at the world, and descended;

I have come by the highway home,

   And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,

   Save those that the oak is keeping

To ravel them one by one

   And let them go scraping and creeping

Out over the crusted snow,

   When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,

   No longer blown hither and thither;

The last lone aster is gone;

   The flowers of the witch hazel wither;

The heart is still aching to seek,

   But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man

   Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

   To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

   Of a love or a season?

To Be Blessed? 

“The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog”

by Alicia Suskin Ostriker

To be blessed
said the old woman
is to live and work
so hard
God’s love
washes right through you
like milk through a cow

To be blessed
said the dark red tulip
is to knock their eyes out
with the slug of lust
implied by your up-ended skirt

To be blessed
said the dog
is to have a pinch
of God
inside you
and all the other
dogs can smell it

Notes:

1)  Tulips are having their last hurrah in the Conservatory Garden - check 'em out before they're gone!

2)  Tulips remind me of the Netherlands.  Today is Queens Day there.  Happy Queens Day, Dutchies!

3) April is National Poetry Month.  April 30th (today) is the last day of National Poetry Month.  It's been real, y'all.

Dark Though It Is 

Riverside Drive

“Thanks” by W. S. Merwin

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

(In her latest book, Still, Lauren Winner recounts reading this poem at Thanksgiving and having her family members pronounce it "depressing."  Winner found it beautiful.  I rather like it as well.  What do you think?)

(April is National Poetry Month)

The Pilgrim Soul In You 

Side street in Santiago

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. 

-When You Are Old, by William Butler Yeats

When I first read this poem, sometime last month, my heart kinda did a deep swoon.  I don't know what it is about this poem (well, I guess I partially do) - it just kills me in the best possible way that poetry can.

Mr. Yeats - I tip my imaginary hat to you, good sir.

(April is National Poetry Month)

All The Old Left Behind

April is National Poetry Month, so I may be sharing some poems here.  Or I may not.  (I'm so unpredictable!)  But I will definitely share at least one, and here it is:

Heart Spring

Often, even before Easter,
Last summer’s deep
Seeds rebel
At their long frozen sleep,
Split, swell
In the dark under
Ground, twist, dance
To a new beat,
Push through a lace of old
Pale roots.

Invited by an unseen heat
They spearhead up, almost
As though, suddenly,
Their tender shoots
Find the loam light as air
Not dense, not sodden cold

I saw a crocus once
In first flight
Stretching so fast
From a late snow
(a boundary just passed,
A singular horizon close below)
the white cap melted
On its purple head.

Such swift greening of
Leaf wings and stalk
Was clear celebration
Of all sweet springs combined,
Of sungold,
Smell of freshness, wind
First-time felt,
Light lifting, all new things,
All things good and right,
And all the old
Left behind

by Luci Shaw, from Polishing the Petoskey Stone 

Getting Past It

Window reflection, Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House

“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 improbably beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.”

- From Starlings in Winter, by Mary Oliver

This poem could be my prayer for me, for 2012:

to move past what hurt about last year

to dream big, audacious things for the new year

Ring In The New

In Memoriam [Ring out, wild bells]
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Marveling

Central Pres, NYC

Noël: Christmas Eve 1913
by Robert Bridges

Pax hominibus bonae voluntatis

A frosty Christmas Eve
when the stars were shining
Fared I forth alone
where westward falls the hill,
And from many a village
in the water'd valley
Distant music reach'd me
peals of bells aringing:
The constellated sounds
ran sprinkling on earth's floor
As the dark vault above
with stars was spangled o'er.
Then sped my thoughts to keep
that first Christmas of all
When the shepherds watching
by their folds ere the dawn
Heard music in the fields
and marveling could not tell
Whether it were angels
or the bright stars singing.

Now blessed be the tow'rs
that crown England so fair
That stand up strong in prayer
unto God for our souls
Blessed be their founders
(said I) an' our country folk
Who are ringing for Christ
in the belfries to-night
With arms lifted to clutch
the rattling ropes that race
Into the dark above
and the mad romping din.

But to me heard afar
it was starry music
Angels' song, comforting
as the comfort of Christ
When he spake tenderly
to his sorrowful flock:
The old words came to me
by the riches of time
Mellow'd and transfigured
as I stood on the hill
Heark'ning in the aspect
of th' eternal silence.


If you're a fan of John Denver & The Muppets: Christmas Together, this poem may sound familiar.

What You Await

Columbus Avenue

December
By Adam Zagajewski

December, herald of destruction,
takes you on a long walk
through the black torso of trees
and leaves scorched by the autumn’s fire,

as if saying: see what’s left
of your secrets, your treasures,
the febrile trill of little birds,
the promises of summer months.

Your dreams have been dissected,
the blackbirds’ song now has a rationale,
plants’ corpses adorn the herbariums.
Only the laboratory’s hard nut remains.

Don’t listen: they may take everything,
but they can’t have your ignorance,
they’ll leave your mysteries, won’t uncover
your third homeland.

Don’t listen, the holidays approach,
and frozen January, snow’s white paper.
What you await is just now being born.
The one you’re seeking will begin to sing.

Because It's Administrative Professionals Day

And because it's still National Poetry Month, I present to you a beloved poem that Judith Viorst wrote, a couple decades before I had the chance to myself:

With all I know about Mr. D. H. Lawrence,
I visualized something literary,
Something full of pipe smoke and good English tweeds.
Where editors were stunned by my perception,
And grateful novelists put me in their books,
And Nobel prize winners, over double-martinis,
Confided their deepest Nobel prize-winning thoughts
To tender, reflective, wise-beyond-my-years me.

With all I know about Mr. Stanislavsky,
I visualized something theatrical,
Something full of false lashes and empathy.
Where directors were stunned by my perception,
And grateful playwrights put me in their plays,
And leading ladies, over double martinis,
Said tearfully if only they had half the talent
Of stirring, memorable, charismatic me.

Instead of which
I am sharpening number two pencils,
And buying the coffee and Danish
At 9:45,
And taking my boss's dictation,
And my boss's wife's blouse back to Henri Bendel,
Hoping that someday someone will be impressed
With all I know.

-The Job, by Judith Viorst

A Few Good Lines

Candles in St. Stephen's, Budapest

April is National Poetry Month.  So....here's a poem.

this kind of fire
by Charles Bukowski

sometimes I think the gods
deliberately keep pushing me
into the fire
just to hear me
yelp
a few good
lines.

they just aren't going to
let me retire
silk scarf about neck
giving lectures at
Yale.

the gods need me to
entertain them.

they must be terribly
bored with all
the others

and I am too.

and now my cigarette lighter
has gone dry.
I sit here
hopelessly
flicking it.

this kind of fire
they can't give
me.

Divesting

Sometimes I struggle with what to write in this space.

Maybe because I have all these (mostly self-imposed) expectations of what I should be writing.

(And what I should be thinking… should be feeling…etc.)

Gotta break out of that land of Should Be, you know? Because any writing I try to do in that Should Be voice comes out stilted and posturing and all around blah.  It's just not me.  And it's just not fun.

So what if I forgot all about the Should Be’s, and what if I just wrote whatever I was genuinely thinking and feeling...?

Hot Dog!

St. Mark's Place on a sunny Saturday

This drippy, gray Monday was made a little more palatable by memories of a weekend crowded with fun.

There was musical improv, talks on park benches, dinner, drinks, karaoke, church, a movie, and a coffee date with an old friend.

But my weekend also featured…

(wait for it)…

DOGS (!!!)

The annual Dachshund Spring Fiesta was on Saturday in Washington Square Park (more pictures forthcoming, don’t you worry) so I gathered there with SBG and Mr. SBG to ogle, adore, and dote upon all the dachshunds in attendance.

Some wore costumes, most went au naturale; some were slight, some were stout; some had wiry coats while others had shaggy beards; several rode in carriages, others strolled in on their own four feet, and still others were carried in the arms of protective owners. One dachshund became enraged at a skateboard; another stared down a French Bulldog, another lounged by a fountain and refused to socialize.

Every so often one dachshund would start barking, setting off a chain reaction with his surrounding canines so that a chorus of dachshund yips would rise up – nearly (but not quite) drowning out the various street musicians playing on the periphery.

After spending an hour or so in the presence of all this wiener dog cuteness, we decided to go eat hot dogs.

But of course.

A short and sunny walk down St. Mark’s Place took us to Crif Dogs, home of a ‘secret’ speakeasy, but also some seriously good hot dogs. Almost as good as a Fenway Frank. (Almost, I said.)

As long as we’re talking hot dogs, and as long as it’s still National Poetry Month, how ‘bout we let Mr. Shel Silverstein tie the two together? Please to enjoy:

Hot Dog

by Shel Silverstein

I have a hot dog for a pet,

The only kind my folks would let

Me get.

He does smell sort of bad

And yet,

He absolutely never gets

The sofa wet.

We have a butcher for a vet,

The strangest vet you ever met.

Guess we're the weirdest family yet,

To have a hot dog for a pet.

Duly Noted

A Bull Mastiff named Billy Bob, Riverside Park

Fact: I haven’t posted here in a week.

Another Fact: I wrote a lengthy post last Thursday but didn’t publish. It was written in anger, and things written in anger are often cathartic but seldom edifying. So it will have to remain a draft until I calm down and figure out what my point is/was.

An Additional Fact: I wrote half of another post last Friday; it was to be the kick-off to a blog series I’ve been plotting and planning for awhile. But when I signed online Saturday to finish said post, I noticed a news item that made this series seem less than in good taste, at least for the moment. So that’s in a draft holding-pattern, too.

One More Fact: Lots has been happening lately that I suppose I could write about, but I just haven’t felt so inspired. Excuses, excuses – writers who really want to write don’t get to blame lack of inspiration. They just need to show up and do the work. And I haven’t shown up this week. Maybe next week?

These are the facts of the matter - but the grace of the situation is that it's April - National Poetry Month - which I'll take as an 'out' - an excuse to substitute someone else's words to fill the void of my own.

And so here is a poem - of excellently arranged and inspired words - by Mr. Andrew Hudgins.


Day Job and Night Job
by Andrew Hudgins

After my night job, I sat in class
and ate, every thirteen minutes,
an orange peanut—butter cracker.
Bright grease adorned my notes.

At noon I rushed to my day job
and pushed a broom enough
to keep the boss calm if not happy.
In a hiding place, walled off

by bolts of calico and serge,
I read my masters and copied
Donne, Marlowe, Dickinson, and Frost,
scrawling the words I envied,

so my hand could move as theirs had moved
and learn outside of logic
how the masters wrote. But why? Words
would never heal the sick,

feed the hungry, clothe the naked,
blah, blah, blah.
Why couldn't I be practical,
Dad asked, and study law—

or take a single business class?
I stewed on what and why
till driving into work one day,
a burger on my thigh

and a sweating Coke between my knees,
I yelled, "Because I want to!"—
pained—thrilled!—as I looked down
from somewhere in the blue

and saw beneath my chastened gaze
another slack romantic
chasing his heart like an unleashed dog
chasing a pickup truck.

And then I spilled my Coke. In sugar
I sat and fought a smirk.
I could see my new life clear before me.
lt looked the same. Like work.

Build One Barn
(National Poetry Month, Cont.)

Carriage House Doors, in the Catskills

Yesterday I read the following poem by Josephine Johnson. Then I read it again.  Then I thought some more about it.  And then I said (to myself, and now to you) "Yes, this is what I've been wondering lately."  How to build one barn?  And which barn to build?  And where?

How to let go of what is not important? How to give more care and attention to what is important?

Lots of questions.  No answers yet.  No matter; I think the asking alone is valuable.

Let Go, Return
by Josephine W. Johnson

This is the need, the deep necessity of every life:
To scatter wide seed in many fields,
But build one barn.

This is our blunder, to have built
Gilt shacks for every seed,
And followed our sowing on fast anxious feet,
Desiring to grind the farmost grain.

Let go. Let go. Return
Heighten and straighten the barn's first beam.
Give shape and form. Discover the rat, the splintered stair.
Throw out the dry, gray corn.

Then may it be said of you:
Behold, he had done one thing well,
And he knows whereof he speaks, and he means what he has said,
And we may trust him.
This is sufficient for a life.

April, Again

St. George's Church, Stuyvesant Square

I can't quite comprehend how it came to be April already. Any ideas as to how we got here - this far, this fast?

No matter - it is April again.  That means it is also National Poetry Month again, though it really feels like the last National Poetry Month was just a couple weeks ago.  How has it been a year already?!

I could keep pondering the fast passing of time, but I don't think that will get us anywhere.  So instead I'll kick off a month of poetry with a little something-something by Mr. Wendell Berry.  No foolin'.

The Thought of Something Else
by Wendell Berry

1.
A spring wind blowing
the smell of the ground
through the intersections of traffic,
the mind turns, seeks a new
nativity—another place,
simpler, less weighted
by what has already been.

Another place!
it’s enough to grieve me—
that old dream of going,
of becoming a better man
just by getting up and going
to a better place.

2.
The mystery. The old
unaccountable unfolding.
The iron trees in the park
suddenly remember forests.
It becomes possible to think of going

3.
—a place where thought
can take its shape
as quietly in the mind
as water in a pitcher,
or a man can be
safely without thought
—see the day begin
and lean back,
a simple wakefulness filling
perfectly
the spaces among the leaves.

I skipped town again this weekend.

Threw my journal, flannel pajama pants, a toothbrush and some snacks in a backpack, and boarded a train bound for East Quogue - a hamlet in the Hamptons and the setting for my small group's retreat.

As it was a weekend aimed at quietness, I don't want to muck up the recap with too many words.  I'm not even sure I have the words to describe the lovely loveliness of time spent away with these girls.

So instead I'll just show you some pictures and leave you with a poem.

Prayer

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.

-Mary Oliver

A Little Night Music...

...is playing on Broadway and I saw it a few weeks ago. While overall it was an enjoyable afternoon of theater-going, I left a bit confused by the story. Specifically the ending, which - judging from the score's bright finish - was intended to be a happy one. However, the romantic arrangements that the characters have settled into by the finale seemed to me more oedipal and pitiable than health-ful and happy.

But if someone has a different take on things, I'd be glad to hear it! In the meantime, I wrote a little poem. Just 'cause.

The set design is simple but entirely effective
Chorus members add an unusual perspective

Quite the cast of characters populate the stage
‘Fredrika’s voice delights despite her precocious age

Angela, that grand dame, delivers lines with vim and vigor
(One wishes that her part could have been a little bigger)

Catherine Zeta is just lovely, treading boards in her bare feet
Singing “Isn’t it bliss?” with irony, after ‘Desiree’s defeat

And though I might give praise for Send in the Clown’s melody
It’s harder to applaud the characters’ infidelity

When curtain fell on second choices and second chances -
Marriages broken to make way for new romances -

I wondered if Sondheim had meant it all for whimsy?
The “happy ending” for me just felt a little too flimsy.


(Meter's broken, but I'm too lazy to fix it. Oops!)

Poetry In Motion

The frozen Charles River, 1/1/10

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.

One of the poems now appearing on a subway car near you is the above, by Mr. Robert Frost. I like it. It reminds me of my practicing-joy endeavor.

And of being watchful for those small moments when God's beauty becomes apparent, when it comes barreling at you, and though you were determined to be sullen and grouse over all the injustices handed you that day, you can't help but walk away in awe, and possibly even with a smile, certainly aware of your smallness, once again thinking about eternity.

Ringing Out

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true...

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1850

* * *

I like this poem. I like the sentiment.

What's more? I like that this year is over. I'm ready to ring it out.

To do that, I'll be using the cowbell I got for my birthday yesterday. It's painted white, with black lettering that reads "I got a fever..." (I'm guessing y'all know what the prescription is, right?)

No doubt it's just the sort of "wild bell" that Lord Tennyson had in mind.

And so - here's to peace, light, truth. Here's to gentle rhyming. Here's to finding a place and space to each ring our wild bell in the New Year.