Happy 12th Night... + Poems for Jan. 10+11

 TS Eliot's marvelous poem https://poets.org/poem/journey-magi which begings: 

‘A cold coming we had of it,   
Just the worst time of the year 
For a journey, and such a long journey: 
The ways deep and the weather sharp, 
The very dead of winter.

For the "Only" challenge:  see Dec. 20: ( I added  Polly and  Paul's  suggestions,.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6Aw3ZnqQrY 

I added two poems from a collection of poems by 20 Norwegian Poets (Editor: T. Johanessen): '12' by Jan Erik Vold (NB: last line: you/know me?  Come on in." )and "Make Yourself no less" by Arnljot Eggen.

Poems:  The New Year Makes a Request, by Abby Murray;  To the New Year, W.S. Merwin; Singularity by Marie Howe (https://vimeo.com/411239105 : This explains some of the background of the poem.  Sun-messenger by Lynn Xu.  The Buck in the Snow by Edna St. Vincent Millay.  Thus Spake the Mockingbird by Barbara Hamby; a few of the 10 Sloppy Haiku of Ordinary Life  by Bruce Cohen. (all 10 here : https://www.rattle.com/ten-sloppy-haiku-of-ordinary-life-by-bruce-cohen/  his favorite quote is from a Wislawa Zymborska poem that reads, ‘I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.’

 I must thank many people for the selection of poems this week.  My MFA friend Abby Murray and Rattle Magazine; another friend who selected the WS Merwin Poem as a timely one for the beginning of a new year; Maria Popova for her blog and interview with Marie Howe.  Coincidentally, Rose-Marie sent the vimeo in preparation for the sharing in person of Jan. 10.  As for the Barbara Hamby poem, I was working with a poem prompt which led me to quote a line from Harper Lee's unforgettable novel  published in 1960 of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it. "'Remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.' That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.  https://www.facinghistory.org/ideas-week/what-does-it-mean-kill-mockingbird

The prompt was to write a poem about your life using extended metaphor and some kind of rhyme scheme.  I include my attempt, as it addresses that theme of "singularity" and "is-ness" of life. 

Mockingbirds

 

If I asked you what is the one

song you admire the best,

I'd tell you it's the calls

of the mockingbirds.

 

They don't mock so much as take what's sung:

If I asked you which is the one

you remember best, you might be hard-pressed

to answer. Miss Maudie* said Their only job            *character in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

 is to sing out their hearts.  I say if you didn't

get close to see their feathers quiver as they sing,

if I asked you what is the one 

singing as it runs through a collection of trills,

 

chirps, cheeps, t'whits, really-really, hey-ho,

chidings and rachets, you might say the woods

are full of dozens of birds, not just one.  But,

if I asked you what is their one 

 

unique song? Why that's the marvel, 

they've taken them all. Isn't that how we are 

absorbing what we're given?  Trying out the parts,

 seeing how the world responds as we play them.

Unique song? Why, that's the marvel, 

this bird mimes for us the endless roles.  Each

unique song rolled into one, marvel done. 

---

[1] character in To Kill a Mockingbird. "'Remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.' That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. 'Your father's right,' she said. 'Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy…but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."