Reading poetry by the Pacific. I feel certain Denise Levertov would approve.
This is an alternative to another poem (twice the length) called "Psalm: People Power at the Die-in." What a name! The lines are basically the same words, but the transitions make the effect of the poem a very different experience.
#LitsyPoetry365
Routine work, that best of all anodynes which the twentieth century has tried its best to deprive itself of--that is what I most want. I would not trade the daily trip it gives me for all the mind-expanders and mind-deadeners the young are hooked on.
Hilda Conkling (1910-1986) dictated all her poems word for word to her mother, starting when she was only five. This is one, probably thought up when she was around nine.
#LitsyPoetry365
As much as I seek to achieve and create, it is a gentle kindness to know that art finds me where I am.
Stafford's reference to "ever-new flakes of snow" is especially personal. When I was just starting to take myself and my writing seriously, I watched snowflakes dance down, realizing God and universe had conspired to make those particular flakes and I cross paths with each other. Those interactions are the birthplaces of art.
#LitsyPoetry365
"I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The Astonishing Light
Of your own Being!"
@Peddler410 's mention of Hafiz prompted me to pull out my long-ignored volume of Daniel Ladinsky's renderings of Hafiz. I can't put them down. I can't stop blushing.
#LitsyPoetry365 Day 5
".... We lie on the earth;
to keep from falling into the stars we reach
as wide as we can and hold onto the grass."
-from "East of Broken Tip"
Lines like these make me ache.
#LitsyPoetry365 Day 4
"Winter Trees" strikes me as the expression of a terrible stark glory. #LitsyPoetry365
"Its door opens near. It's a shrine / by the road, it's a flower in the parking lot / of the Pentagon, it says, 'Look around, / listen. Feel the air.'" -from "Poetry" by William Stafford, my Kansas boy. Apropos for the first day of this new year. Thanks for the invitation to #LitsyPoetry365 @SharonGoforth
pick@ReadingMidwife : Your choices in stories will enchant the angels! @ everyone_else: It goes like this: "Here, give this book to Mom, but hopefully you'll have time to read it first."
Road trip to Whistler, BC. Cranked out this snappy holiday read-aloud with the boys. Car time well spent!
This is my return to Sunday afternoon reading. Tea growing cold, darkness coming on early, and Stegner pointing to humanity in the American West.
