When I asked my friend who took this beautiful picture of poppies, if I could include it with this week's poems, she answered: I feel so privileged to be featured the company of such a wonderfully curated group of exquisitely evocative poems. If any collection could serve as an introduction to ‘why poetry’ I think these poems give collective answer- it is capable of fixing, with its perfectly original use of words, the ineffable but profound moments that crystalize, as does a snowflake’s singular beauty, what creates private ordinary but also universal and extraordinary joyful meaning in life
Unfortunately, this blog refuses to reproduce this picture by Valerie Newman-Chalifour taken in May 2022 : early morning walk in Argelès-sur-mer during her trip to France this past May. Taken by crouching way down nearly flat against the ground, She found the backlighting that transformed these poppies and wild grasses into a moment of celebration.
Poems
Each poem pointed to the “ineffable but profound moments” that bring such hope and reminders of extraordinary moments that remind us that indeed, no matter how glum or dark the despair, it is counterbalanced by joy…
Poppies by Mary Oliver
“of course loss is the great lesson, BUT… light is an invitation to happiness… which when done right is a kind of holiness…
Human Beauty by Albert Goldbarth
a box… broken open, and that flash of white/confetti was lost/inside what it was a praise of
On Prayer and On Pilgrimage by Czeslaw Milosz: Pilgrimage seemed a continuation of Prayer: ... which constructs a velvet bridge… that leads to the shore of Reversal… May the gentle mountains
and bells of the glocks/remind us of everything we have lost, for all we have seen on our way, and fallen in love with the world that will pass in a twinkling
Meeting at an Airport by Taha Muhammad Ali: a story that intimates a story that could be several stories, some of which contradict each other. The poet's stance: to hate departure, to love spring, the middle hours of the moment…doesn't answer who do you love. what happened between the then and now of the 40 years between the two friends? How might it have been otherwise? And what will happen next...
I went out to Hear by Leila Chatti… the luck to live, not just a perfect (and transitory) moment, but be on the lookout for them… glad “to live a life you would die for”!
Nutshell: Well, before the nutshell, we have missed Paul, who has been striken by some pneumonia for the past 6 weeks. So, we called him and sang a rousing chorus of Brennan on the Moor. He appreciated the serenade. I am grateful to each one of you who has ever attended, but especially to the core group of faithful returning weekly attendees.
Poppies: Published in her collection of 1992 "New and Selected" , Mary brings us her observation of orange poppies, one of the multiple varieties. Indeed, the wild petals can seem like "roughage" although the bright field share in "rough and spongy gold". The miracle of light, the contrast of the trisyllabic black, cured blade of the cold, the deep, blue night, contrasts with the lightness of the trisyllables of indigo, happiness, holiness, palpable, redemptive.
If read aloud, normally one would not pause at the stanza breaks, but the eye is allowed pause at levitation before going on.
The pause between "this world that doesn't" and "sooner or later drown/in indigos of darkness, allows a delay before the arrival of "sooner". The first four sentences hide in the folds of the first five quatrains. The last sentence spills over in the remaining four quatrains, replete with big breaths of em-dashes in the last two. Religious overtones, washed and washed, and earthly delight... not to mention "holiness" and redemptive are not too sentimental, especially with the rather cocky question asked of night. We too as readers are included... what can we do? what will we do-- and will we accept that invitation from the light? If so, how?
Human Beauty: What is human beauty? Goldbarth starts with abstraction, speaking of writing poems of love, and on to an allusion to paper, as origami bird, only to shift to poems on death, that terrible fire and paper cut out flames offered to it.
The couplets don't quite match the meaning, as if on purpose, both to give the reader time to digest the words, pause to think about love, death, a sort of abstract negative space between the stanzas, inserting a "wabi-sabi" element. What is that space between our gestures and the power they address? He gives us the accidental meeting of nature and art in the story of the 1892 snowstorm and the irony of the box of paper snow broken open; the "flash of white/ confetti was lost "inside what it was praise of".
On Prayer: Beautiful and consoling image of the uplifting power of prayer as a velvet bridge, leading to the shore of Reversal...
where the word "is" indeed unveils; and that beautiful image of compassion of the "we" for those tangled in the flesh. The power of prayer as survival, even if there is no other shore in that moment of offering it, opening ourselves up to possibility.
On Pilgrimage: Like a prayer, three of the stanzas start with a blessing, "May the smell, the taste, the mountains" .
We have talked often of the impact of history, the milieu in which a poem is written. Knowing Milosz 1911-2004, experienced the devastation of the Nazi invasion of Poland. And what allows you to survive in a concentration camp? Life memories, even when they are reminders of everything we have lost, like the last poem, those memories allowed us to "fall in love with the world", and we know it is not forever. It may not matter whether the twinkling is welcome relief, or a reminder to savor as much as we can each day.
Meeting in an Airport: How many versions of the story can you make? Usually when we are uncomfortable, we lower the gaze... and that question after the midmorning trip to the spring, made the poet lower his eyelashes of surprise.
His answer refers to the time spent together, but does not answer the question of who do you love. Why that question?
What kind of laugh as response? And then 40 years. A chance meeting. A repeat of the question and the answer. But this time, instead of blooming, the flowers bow their heads... instead of nightingales, doves, symbol of peace, love, stumble.
It's such an evocative poem of unrequited love, regret. Perhaps the "who" is the moment...
I think each person in the room could provide a personal story of encounters, chances, of repeats... each with a different outcome perhaps.
I went out to hear: peaceful poem. The enormity of the silence, the brief moment of absolute beauty. A sense of sacred... the mysterious way one can look up, thinking something behind you, and it is gone. A surprising turn at the end. It could have ended on the moment providing hurt if remembered. Instead, How lucky to have lived / a life I would die for.
We all thought the the 6th line word, “obscene” did not fit… maybe a word like 'superfluous', or if you need an antonym for sacred, then profane.
Thank you all for your participation as ever. Feel free to comment.
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