this is a poem.

two summers ago, the son of a staff writer at the newspaper where I worked died in a car accident. I wrote this poem then; I still like it. that doesn’t happen often for me, so I decided to post it.

—

how quickly life can end,
how suddenly;
with a faulty turn of the wheel
or a failing heart,
it is gone.
loss is fair
only in that it does not discriminate–
good or bad doesn’t matter,
you could still be dead tomorrow,
and it is the very virtue of death’s fairness
that makes it so unfair.
a far-reaching list could be made
of those who should not have died so young,
so suddenly,
with such pain,
without finishing what they started.
they did not deserve it, we say ;
but do we mean that
we do not deserve to mourn their loss,
to feel the emptiness they leave behind?
death is unfair not because it robs us,
sometimes so suddenly, of beautiful lives,
but because it leaves us
to go on without them.

in going through a journal

I found this. written 5/12/2008.

I am just trying to deal with it all.
Somewhere I got the idea that I’m in this alone.
Somewhere, I got the idea
that keeping my head above water
was the point.
So I survive
by the skin of my teeth,
but really by grace;
and as I examine this life, and question:
what went wrong?
I realize
I am not really living.

friday, 1:25-2:40

in literature class
I am sitting, pretending to pay attention.
but my eyes are raw from lack of sleep
and I am fueled solely by coffee and diet coke –
neither of these things being conducive to
keeping track of our rambling, Shakespeare-obsessed professor.
he is talking about
how Shakespeare understood real love–
all of its nuances, joys and imperfections–
and I don’t want to hear it today.

on this saturday night…

I’m staying in.
I guess I could talk for a while about how things are in my life. I don’t particularly feel like doing that. poetry instead.
–

at this point it would be easy
to do what I want.
at this point,
logically,
it’s my turn.
but something holds me back.
I have a sense that
what I want is not what I need;
and it’s time to question all of this.

new week…

this week had a good start.

Monday and Tuesday are probably my least favorite days. but today was good, so I have high hopes for tomorrow.

this poem is kind of a hard read, but a very good one. keep in mind the famous line from Roman poetry: dulce et decorum est pro patria mori — “it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”

Dulce et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime …
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

today I read…

The Learned
by Eden Phillpotts

The grey-beards wag, the bald heads nod,
And gather thick as bees,
To talk electrons, gasses, God,
Old nebulae, new fleas.
Each specialist, each dry-as-dust
And professorial oaf,
Holds up his little crumb of crust
And cries, “Behold the loaf!”

–

no beating around the bush. I like that.

I love naps.

but apparently, taking a three-hour nap is not the best idea if you’re planning on trying to get a good night’s sleep in five or six hours. I didn’t intend to make it a three-hour nap, I just laid down at 2 p.m. and woke up at 5 p.m. it was an awesome nap, really, but if I’d have thought of it I’d have set an alarm for 3 or so to avoid a) sleeping away most of the afternoon and b) feeling incredibly alert at 11:53, a time when I should be nodding off.

I’ve been reading so much poetry lately. it’s the section we’re currently on in literature (did I mention that already?) and I love it. in addition to selections from the book we’re in, I pulled out this “Anthology of World Poetry” that I got this summer at a used bookstore in Maine. I pull it out for perusal every so often. for some reason, the more poetry I read the more I want to read.

Love Is Not All: It Is Not Meat nor Drink
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lungs with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

pretty amazing.

today, I almost bled to death.

I guess that’s not technically true, since I probably wasn’t in danger of losing my life. I got my thumb at work today while I was dicing potatoes, and the cut wouldn’t stop bleeding no matter what I did… basically making it impossible to accomplish anything for the last hour I was at work. finally I got it to stop long enough to get some liquid bandage on it, so now it’s good. it was kind of ironic that what is likely the least serious injury I’ve ever incurred incapacitated me for an hour. I slipped out by the frozen yogurt machine today and whacked my arm on a corner of something and I think the bruise from that (which began to appear immediately after I fell) hurts worse than my thumb.

I woke up this morning to a world of white… not only was snow covering the ground, but it was also falling — giant flakes, thick in the air. I took the interstate to work this morning instead of driving the back way. at that point just past Montrose where you can basically see the whole city I looked out and all I could see was the snow. pretty amazing. “this is the poem of the air” — that Longfellow guy knew what he was talking about. ;]

I’m running almost purely on caffeine today, since I got about 4 hours of sleep last night. and that is entirely my own fault for staying out so late. but despite the tiredness I feel, I am also really refreshed. there are some cruddy things going on right now, and my heart’s not quite at peace. but I got to spend some time with this girl last night and, among other things, genuinely laugh. it was good. on that note, if you click on that link, there’s a rather interesting video containing some of that laughter.

to end, a new discovery which will surely be an all-time favorite.

The Waking
by Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

I absolutely adore snow.

and this poem is amaaaaazing.

Snow-Flakes
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.

these days…

I am learning to look past things
not deny them
but forgive them;
to be open and guarded both at once.
I am learning to accept things
to allow the grace that covers me
to come from my mouth
in words of peace.
I am learning that forgiveness is humility–
accepting that I’m not the important one.
and in this,
in this I am learning to love you again.