National Poetry Month Day 28: Ruins

While perusing the Internet, I came across today’s poem by C.S. Lewis.  I’ll be honest: I haven’t read a lot of his poems.  Or his books.  I could never get into Narnia as a kid, and I haven’t really attempted again in adulthood.  I know I should, but in the meantime…there is this poem.  Just today I wrote about endings, how the ending of a poem can transform it and encapsulate it.  This poem has just that.

National Poetry Month Day 27: Of Grandmothers and Unrequited Love

Most people know Willa Cather as the author of such famous frontier books as O Pioneers! and My Ántonia.  I was the same until I read this poem in, of course, my favorite poetry anthology.  I think this poem is special because it not only speaks to unrequited love (perhaps the most popular topic of all artists) but also the love of a grandmother.  You might think that the two wouldn’t work together, but here, they do.  And since I had a grandmother like the grandmother in the poem, it has always been a favorite.

Grandmither, Think Not I Forget

By Willa Cather

Grandmither, think not I forget, when I come back to town,
An’ wander the old ways again, an’ tread them up and down.
I never smell the clover bloom, nor see the swallows pass,
Without I mind how good ye were unto a little lass.
I never hear the winter rain a-pelting all night through,
Without I think and mind me of how cold it falls on you.
And if I come not often to your bed beneath the thyme,
Mayhap ’tis that I’d change wi’ ye, and gie my bed for thine,
Would like to sleep in thine.

I never hear the summer winds among the roses blow,
Without I wonder why it was ye loved the lassie so.
Ye gave me cakes and lollipops and pretty toys a store, –
I never thought I should come back and ask ye now for more.
Grandmither, gie me your still, white hands, that lie upon your breast,
For mine do beat the dark all night, and never find me rest;
They grope among the shadows, an’ they beat the cold black air,
They go seekin’ in the darkness, an’ they never find him there,
They never find him there.

Grandmither, gie me your sightless eyes, that I may never see
His own a-burnin’ full o’ love that must not shine for me.
Grandmither, gie me your peaceful lips, white as the kirkyard snow,
For mine be tremblin’ wi’ the wish that he must never know.
Grandmither, gie me your clay-stopped ears, that I may never hear
My lad a-singin’ in the night when I am sick wi’ fear;
A-singin’ when the moonlight over a’ the land is white –
Ah, God! I’ll up an’ go to him a-singin’ in the night,
A-callin’ in the night.

Grandmither, gie me your clay-cold heart that has forgot to ache,
For mine be fire within my breast and yet it cannot break.
Wi’ every beat it’s callin’ for things that must not be, –
An’ can ye not let me creep in an’ rest awhile by ye?
A little lass afeard o’ dark slept by ye years agone –
Ah, she has found what night can hold ‘twixt sundown an’ the dawn!
So when I plant the rose an’ rue above your grave for ye,
Ye’ll know it’s under rue an’ rose that I would like to be,
That I would like to be.

National Poetry Month Day 26: Not Waving

I think it should be clear by now that I love a poem with some good rhythm and perhaps a little repetition.  To me, poetry doesn’t have to rhyme but the beat and the pace are important.  In that way, poetry to me is very much like music.

Today’s poem has both rhythm and repetition.  The first few times I read it (in, yet again, my favorite poetry book), I didn’t really understand it but I was always drawn to it.  I think I finally know why – how often do we feel misunderstood, misinterpreted, not recognized?  How often do people see us waving when we are drowning?  They are all an integral part of the human condition.

National Poetry Month Day 25: How to End a Poem

Okay, so yet again I’m behind.  I had a crazy busy weekend with lots of working and just didn’t have a chance to sit down at the computer.  However, I did have some poetry going on in my life: my mom sent me this link and I’ve been reading its poems the past few days.  I knew some of the poems and some of them were new to me and of those, a handful really stuck out.  One is today’s poem.  I’ve enjoyed all of Anne Sexton’s poetry that I’ve read, but I haven’t sought her out much.  The occasional in-class poem in high school, the inclusions in the various anthologies I own.  And the one I’m sharing today, that I read on Buzzfeed’s list.  I love this poem because of its ending; I love a poem that ends in such a way that your heart or your gut wrench a little, with the message of the poem tied off with a vivid image or idea.  It leaves the poem pulsing a bit in your mind, lingering a little longer.