A friend's mother died yesterday.
He asked me to help him find a poem to read at her funeral. I sent him a number of poems from which he can choose. When I had gone through the ones that I already knew I did a little google search and found the poem below.
It is very sad and very moving.
A Tulip in Winter
(for Janice Fitzpatrick)
Your out-of-season hospital tulip still
brightens above its parti-colored foil.
Lacquered in lamplight, its fleshy leafage
could, conceivably, survive this way
a hundred days. A hundred days (imagine
that) to paint out the wallpaper harlequins,
uncane your cane-back rocking chair,
to reclaim your green connection to a place
where flowers such as these are grown
to leave the living less impossibly alone.
( Sherod Santos )
Thanks for another thread in our tapestry of poetry, Jjorge. It is, indeed, very sad and moving. A tulip seem so singular and alone to me... and so frail. How could it last 100 days. If only... The last lines will surely give your friend comfort.
I immediately thought, upon reading your message, that your friend was wise to come to you for poetry help. You have a wonderful knack for finding great poetry and I'm glad your fame has spread beyond a2k. Poetry provides so effective a means of condolence -- it is immediate, emotional and a bridge to thoughts beyond the mundane. It was a sad task but a worthy one.
Piffka
You are very kind.
I feel very good to be able to help him in this way although I don't know how he'll read such a poem (or one of the others) without totally losing his composure. Such poems make me cry just reading them to myself.
A few months ago my friend saw a collection of ten poems I had put together for my son-in-law, and for his father, when his grandmother died. I got the idea to send them, in lieu of flowers, - a sort of 'bouquet of poems'.
He and his dad were very appreciative.
Anyway, I guess that's why my friend asked for help.
The ten poems were:
1. 'Softened by Time's Consumate Plush' (Emily Dickinson #1738)
2. 'Nobody Knows This Little Rose' (Emily Dickinson #35)
3. 'Question' (May Swenson)
4. 'Childhood is the Kingdom Where No One Dies' (Edna St.Vincent Millay)
5. 'For the Anniversary of My death' (W.S. Merwin)
6. 'Home is So Sad' (Philip Larkin)
7. 'Dirge Without Music' (Edna St.Vincent Millay)
8. 'The Layers' (Stanley Kunitz)
9. 'An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow' (Les Murray)
10. 'Death Be Not Proud' (John Donne)
Jjorge -- I know what you mean. Sometimes, tears can happen just reading these poems silently to one's self, especially if they have become meaningful and remind us of someone. Here's a line that might do it, we've most of us done this very thing:
To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who have died,
I am impressed with your wonderful idea of a bouquet of poems. Would you be willing to add the poems themselves or their links? I'll help and find the ESVM poems... I blush to say I didn't know the first one. Thanks for the introduction!
Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies
Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.
Nobody that matters, that is. Distant relatives of course
Die, whom one never has seen or has seen for an hour,
And they gave one candy in a pink-and-green stripéd bag,
or a jack-knife,
And went away, and cannot really be said to have lived at all.
And cats die. They lie on the floor and lash their tails,
And their reticent fur is suddenly all in motion
With fleas that one never knew were there,
Polished and brown, knowing all there is to know,
Trekking off into the living world.
You fetch a shoe-box, but it's much too small, because she won't
curl up now:
So you find a bigger box, and bury her in the yard, and weep.
But you do not wake up a month from then, two months
A year from then, two years, in the middle of the night
And weep, with your knuckles in your mouth, and say Oh, God! Oh, God!
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies that matters,
?-mothers and fathers don't die.
And if you have said, "For heaven's sake, must you always
be kissing a person?"
Or, "I do wish to gracious you'd stop tapping on the window
with your thimble!"
Tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow if you're busy having fun,
Is plenty of time to say, "I'm sorry, mother."
To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who have died,
who neither listen nor speak;
Who do not drink their tea, though they always said
Tea was such a comfort.
Run down into the cellar and bring up the last jar of raspberries;
they are not tempted.
Flatter them, ask them what was it they said exactly
That time, to the bishop, or to the overseer, or to Mrs. Mason;
They are not taken in.
Shout at them, get red in the face, rise,
Drag them up out of their chairs by their stiff shoulders and
shake them and yell at them;
They are not startled, they are not even embarrassed; they slide
back into their chairs.
Your tea is cold now.
You drink it standing up,
And leave the house.
Dirge Without Music
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,--but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the
love, --
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not
approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the
world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
Piffka
Just logged on briefly to check my email. I'd be happy to post all of the remaining poems.
I'll do it later this eve as I am off now to my friend's mother's wake.
Piffka,
Here are all ten poems in sequence.
The edit function is like a time machine!
I can go back after reading your comment (below) and insert the two ESVM poems into this earlier post!
I had originally omitted them because you posted them but, truth be told, I spent at least an hour shuffling and re-shuffling the poems to 'sequence' them. (I'm glad you picked up on the sequencing)
The idea was to take the bereaved person on a back and forth emotional journey in which the focus goes back and forth in time and back and forth between the deceased and themselves -including their own mortality. The Kunitz and the Murray poems (8. and 9. then show the way to resolving their grief and moving forward. . . while the Donne poem of course, holds out the ultimate hope - ie. of conquering death in a hereafter.
1. #1738
Softened by Time's consummate plush,
How sleek the woe appears
That threatened childhood's citadel
And undermined the years.
Bisected now, by bleaker griefs,
We envy the despair
That devastated childhood's realm,
So easy to repair.
(Emily Dickinson)
*************************************************************
2.
#35
Nobody knows this little Rose --
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it --
Only a Butterfly,
Hastening from far journey --
On its breast to lie --
Only a Bird will wonder --
Only a Breeze will sigh --
Ah Little Rose -- how easy
For such as thee to die!
(Emily Dickinson c.1858)
*************************************************************
3.
"Question"
Body my house
my horse my hound
what will I do
when you are fallen
Where will I sleep
How will I ride
What will I hunt
Where can I go
without my mount
all eager and quick
How will I know
in thicket ahead
is danger or treasure
when my Body my good
bright dog is dead
How will it be
to lie in the sky
without roof or door
and wind for an eye
With cloud for shift
how will I hide?
(May Swenson)
*************************************************************
4.
'Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies'
Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.
Nobody that matters, that is. Distant relatives of course
Die, whom one never has seen or has seen for an hour,
And they gave one candy in a pink-and-green stripéd bag,
or a jack-knife,
And went away, and cannot really be said to have lived at all.
And cats die. They lie on the floor and lash their tails,
And their reticent fur is suddenly all in motion
With fleas that one never knew were there,
Polished and brown, knowing all there is to know,
Trekking off into the living world.
You fetch a shoe-box, but it's much too small, because she won't
curl up now:
So you find a bigger box, and bury her in the yard, and weep.
But you do not wake up a month from then, two months
A year from then, two years, in the middle of the night
And weep, with your knuckles in your mouth, and say Oh, God! Oh, God!
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies that matters,
?-mothers and fathers don't die.
And if you have said, "For heaven's sake, must you always
be kissing a person?"
Or, "I do wish to gracious you'd stop tapping on the window
with your thimble!"
Tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow if you're busy having fun,
Is plenty of time to say, "I'm sorry, mother."
To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who have died,
who neither listen nor speak;
Who do not drink their tea, though they always said
Tea was such a comfort.
Run down into the cellar and bring up the last jar of raspberries;
they are not tempted.
Flatter them, ask them what was it they said exactly
That time, to the bishop, or to the overseer, or to Mrs. Mason;
They are not taken in.
Shout at them, get red in the face, rise,
Drag them up out of their chairs by their stiff shoulders and
shake them and yell at them;
They are not startled, they are not even embarrassed; they slide
back into their chairs.
Your tea is cold now.
You drink it standing up,
And leave the house.
(Edna St Vincent Millay)
*************************************************************
5.
'For The Anniversary of My Death'
Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And boding not knowing to what
(W.S.Merwin)
*************************************************************
6.
'Home Is So Sad'
'Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft
And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the music stool. That vase.'
( Philip Larkin )
*************************************************************
7.
'Dirge Without Music'
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, but the best is lost.
The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
(Edna St.Vincent Millay)
*************************************************************
8.
"The Layers"
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
The manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
(Stanley Kunitz)
*************************************************************
9.
'An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow'
The word goes around Repins,
the murmur goes round Lorenzinis,
at Tattersall's, men look up from sheets of numbers,
the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands
and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club:
There's a fellow crying in Martin Place. They can't stop him.
The traffic in George Street is banked up for half a mile
and drained of motion. The crowds are edgy with talk
and more crowds come hurrying. Many run in the back streets
which minutes ago were busy main streets, pointing:
There's a fellow weeping down there. No one can stop him.
The man we surround, the man no one approaches
simply weeps, and does not cover it, weeps
not like a child, not like the wind, like a man
and does not declaim it, nor beat his breast, nor even
sob very loudly - yet the dignity of his weeping
holds us back from his space, the hollow he makes about him
in the midday light, in his pentagram of sorrow,
and uniforms back in the crowd who tried to seize him
stare out at him, and feel, with amazement, their minds
longing for tears as children for a rainbow.
Some will say, in the years to come, a halo
of force stood around him. There is no such thing.
Some will say they were shocked and would have stopped him
but they will not have been there. The fiercest manhood,
the toughest reserve, the slickest wit amongst us
trembles with silence, and burns with unexpected
judgements of peace. Some in the concourse scream
who thought themselves happy. Only the smallest children
and such as look out of Paradise come near him
and sit at his feet, with dogs and dusty pigeons.
Ridiculous, says a man near me, and stops
his mouth with his hands, as if it uttered vomit -
and I see a woman, shining, stretch her hand
and shake as she receives the gift of weeping;
as many as follow her also receive it
and many weep for sheer acceptance, and more
refuse to weep for fear of all acceptance,
but the weeping man, like the earth, requires nothing,
the man who weeps ignores us, and cries out
of his writhen face and ordinary body
not words, but grief, not messages, but sorrow,
hard as the earth, sheer, present, as the sea -
and when he stops, he simply walks between us
mopping his face with the dignity of one
man who has wept, and now has finished weeping.
Evading believers, he hurries off down Pitt Street.
(Les Murray)
*************************************************************
10.
"Death Be Not Proud"
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
(John Donne)
*************************************************************[/
These are fabulous. I am nearly overwhelmed by #9. Thanks, Jjorge. I love #3, as well. The Dickinson's are great and... well, they're all good, very, very good.
I hope you don't mind they ended up being printed out of order. I can see that there is a definite progression of thought and it is just a wonderful job you've done. I'm sure others reading this later will long appreciate it. Here are some of my first most-favorite lines:
"Only a Bee will miss it --
Only a Butterfly"
from Emily Dickinson
"Like the beam of a lightless star"
from W.S. Merwin
"Only the smallest children
and such as look out of Paradise come near him
and sit at his feet, with dogs and dusty pigeons."
from Les Murray
Piffka FYI
'An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow' was first posted on another thread (I think by dlowan). I had never heard of Les Murray who is an Aussie poet (I believe) and regretably he seems to be a virtual unknown in this country.
I too was stunned by his extraordinary poem and would like to read more of his work.
I've looked around a bit but can't find any books of his at Borders or Barnes and Noble. As a matter of fact I think I drew a blank from Amazon as well. I may have to find an Aussie book store that does business online.
By the way, I can't adequately tell you how much I enjoy sharing and discussing poems with you. I'm really delighted that we are friends.
Thanks Jjorge, you have quite a list of special ones
haven't you. I've never seen 9 and it IS very
moving, and I can feel what that kind of grief is
that makes people stand back
and come no where near you.
................
Live the life you've imagined.
As you simplify your life,
the laws of the universe will be simpler
Thoreau
..............
The Bear
The bear puts both arms around the tree above her
And draws it down as if it were a lover
And its choke cherries lips to kiss good-bye,
Then lets it snap back upright in the sky.
Her next step rocks a boulder on the wall
(She's making her cross-country in the fall).
Her great weight creaks the barbed-wire in its staples
As she flings over and off down through the maples,
Leaving on one wire moth a lock of hair.
Such is the uncaged progress of the bear.
The world has room to make a bear feel free;
The universe seems cramped to you and me.
Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage
That all day fights a nervous inward rage
His mood rejecting all his mind suggests.
He paces back and forth and never rests
The me-nail click and shuffle of his feet,
The telescope at one end of his beat
And at the other end the microscope,
Two instruments of nearly equal hope,
And in conjunction giving quite a spread.
Or if he rests from scientific tread,
'Tis only to sit back and sway his head
Through ninety odd degrees of arc, it seems,
Between two metaphysical extremes.
He sits back on his fundamental butt
With lifted snout and eyes (if any) shut,
(lie almost looks religious but he's not),
And back and forth he sways from cheek to cheek,
At one extreme agreeing with one Greek
At the other agreeing with another Greek
Which may be thought, but only so to speak.
A baggy figure, equally pathetic
When sedentary and when peripatetic.
R Frost
I'm a poet
and I don't know it
but my feet show it
They're longfellows.
Hi Algis -- My mother taught me that poem! She loved Longfellow's work!
She also had a poem, which I've only found in one anthology called Some Little Bug. I can't remember most of it, but it included the lines "Some little bug will get you some day, Some little bug will creep behind you some day" all about how we'll all fall ill to something someday. Good grief, I was terrified of bugs!
Babs -- Thanks for posting those. That one by Robert Frost is particularly fun to read aloud, I've noticed!
{{{{Jjorge}}}} Thanks! I am honored to call you my friend.
Have you been checking for Les Murray online? I'll do that.
Hey, there's lots (47,500 hits!) of Les Murray poetry online. Here's a short bio with a great picture of him:
Les Murray
Here's a quote: ... he celebrates in "The Quality of Sprawl!" - "Sprawl is doing your farming by aeroplane, roughly, /or driving a hitchhiker that extra hundred miles home."
Doesn't he sound like somebody you'd want to pick you up hitchhiking?
Babs
I liked the Thoreau quote. I am a believer in his injunction to 'simplify' and have been trying to implement it in my life.
Thanks too for the Frost poem. It's one that I had never looked closely at. I particularly like the lines:
". . . Such is the uncaged progress of the bear.
The world has room to make a bear feel free;
The universe seems cramped to you and me.
Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage
That all day fights a nervous inward rage
His mood rejecting all his mind suggests.
He paces back and forth and never rests . . ."
Hi Algis!
Better keep your longfellows warm up there in Montreal.
Piffka
Well, I guess I didn't do such a good search did I?
Thanks a lot for the link and info. on Murray. He sounds very interesting and well worht reading. Isn't it fascinating that a poet of his stature can be virtually unknown in this country!
I am definitely going to get my hands on one of his books, probably 'Learning Human'.
Piffka et al
You probably know that April is 'Poetry Month'.
A couple of years ago I started receiving daily poems during April from Knopf.
Below is today's poem. I've left the links and 'subscribe' information intact in case you may wish to use them.
-jjorge
*************************************************
An April poem from a sonnet sequence about the changing seasons included in George Bradley's most recent collection, SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED:
Millrace
Each April's different: this one saw a spate
Of rain increase the run-off from the snow
To make the village millpond overflow
Well-groomed banks and leap an unused gate
Into the race, which had not felt the flood
In fifty years. That's when the mill and wheel,
Back then though insufficiently genteel,
Were leveled and the stream shut up for good,
Or so it seemed. But flood will out, commotion
Run its course. I watched the water boil
Through undergrowth, sluicing astonished soil
Off toward the deep disturbance of our ocean,
And so subside and next day leave no trace
But mud and some erosion in the race.
*************************************************
Excerpted from Some Assembly Required by George Bradley. Copyright© 2001 by George Bradley. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
About SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED:
http://info.randomhouse.com/cgi-bin21/DM/y/eKpc0DXKX10Wa0JO20Am
A conversation with George Bradley:
http://info.randomhouse.com/cgi-bin21/DM/y/eKpc0DXKX10Wa0JO30An
Bradley's essay about his working methods:
http://info.randomhouse.com/cgi-bin21/DM/y/eKpc0DXKX10Wa0JO40Ao
To subscribe, forward this message to [
[email protected]]. E-mail comments or questions to
[email protected]
I think poetry is the culminated component of human culture.
Thanks Jjorge, I think I'll try to get on the mailing list!
Did you know that we've got a Poems of April topic going? This one would have been perfect for that, even mentions "April."
I don't know much about millraces, but the description makes it pretty easy to understand. I love the line "But flood will out, commotion runs its course."
I had not heard of Mary Oliver before today when I bought an anthology and 'met' her for the first time. This lovely poem has me wanting to read more:
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
-- Mary Oliver
For more on Mary Oliver go to:
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?45442B7C000C040300
Wow. That is terrific! Thanks, Jjorge for posting this. That "soft animal body" is a great concept, so true. Sorry I haven't been posting for a while... just said goodbye to our own Ossobuco who was visiting.
I did a little bit of searching around about Mary Oliver (she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry!) and found this poem which seems appropriate because it is early morning here. Is it your nature to be happy?
Morning Poem by Mary Oliver
Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it
the thorn
that is heavier than lead ---
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging ---
there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted ---
each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.
from Dream Work (1986)
