Keeping Things Whole -- by Mark Strand
Death of the Old Year. by Alfred Lord Tennyson
new:
Death of the Old Year. by Alfred Lord Tennyson
new:
In Memoriam, [Ring out, wild bells]
Toward the Winter Solstice by
Timothy Steele, 1948
Midway Poem by Michael Czarnecki
The Only Ceremony We Had Left To Us by Susan
Deer Cloud
what we can't know by James LaVilla-Havelin
Winter Trees by William Carlos Williams, 1883 - 1963
The poem by Mark Strand plays as if painting with negative space -- "I am what is missing"
parts the air... which fills the space where "I" has been. There is a sense of universal,
a connection of inside/outside, self/non-self...
Quite a contrast with the Tennyson where the music carries the poem. The repetition of "Old year" becomes the confidant in the last stanza as the new year steps in. Him" is both the year and Arthur Hallam.
We preferred the "Death of the Old Year" to the "In Memoriam" which has a song-like quality which saves it, but somewhat flatter with a list of agreed upon wrongs… Wring and ring...
The poem by Mark Strand plays as if painting with negative space -- "I am what is missing"
parts the air... which fills the space where "I" has been. There is a sense of universal,
a connection of inside/outside, self/non-self...
Quite a contrast with the Tennyson where the music carries the poem. The repetition of "Old year" becomes the confidant in the last stanza as the new year steps in. Him" is both the year and Arthur Hallam.
We preferred the "Death of the Old Year" to the "In Memoriam" which has a song-like quality which saves it, but somewhat flatter with a list of agreed upon wrongs… Wring and ring...
Bernie: juxtaposed innocence… scrooge after
resurrection.
Michael's poem is from Poets Walk... lovely that "midway" on a line by itself with
6 lines above, 6 lines
below. sense of balance…Fun to think of our life like a carnaval…
small, alone, in vast company and not a penny spent for the privilege…
The Susan Deer Cloud repeats "Ceremony" over and over... what is significant for a society to "exorcise demonic of human nature" (to quote Louise Erdrich) important to learn
traditions… Braiding Sweetgrass
– Maura recommends. The strong beginning -- "I am not going to pretend" is also repeated--
"My sister, once I cried for Chippewa bear medicine
when they cut my
tongue. Can I pretend otherwise?
The last ceremony
left to me is riding
the broken horses of love off cliffs.
How do we understand the last sentence? How is it linked to the pretending... ?
Is it a good thing to ride what is broken off the cliffs? Is there any hope that love can be whole and healing?
The next poem was equally enigmatic... satisfying to read "a lie’s uncurling" which is beautifully
visual.
[Locked
away we’re like a Russian novel:] by Gabrielle Calvocoressi
Fun markings -- like music -- the "da capo al fine... "
Difficult.
The Timothy Steele was like the end
of the year poems in the New Yorker… a
little more weight than the humor. bumpy ride but everyone liked it, especially the vivid
depiction of celebrating x-mas in LA.
(tumbleweed decoration.)
We closed with this gem by WCW.
Winter Trees by William Carlos Williams, 1883 - 1963
All the complicated
details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.
Never quite thought about "attiring and disattiring"-- in today's walk where beech leaves still hung
under the spattering of fresh snow on the branches... nothing seems ever completed...
One oak leaf was dancing its head off, twirling and twirling, hanging on by a thin stem.
A chorus of smaller leaves fluttered as if clapping their hands. If there was sleep in the forest,
shiny trunks cased in ice, snow flung against ridges of bark, there was an aliveness of dreaming.
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