Doves' Devotion

Doves cooing in early February,

Calling to each other with an affirmation of their bond.

They comfort me

With the beauty of their commitment song.

On Mother’s Day May 8, 2016

Sitting on my bed with you

  Discussing why-we-are-here.

You, so certain.

I, less so.

Your personal convictions are your religion

   Along with your smorgasbord version of

   Catholicism.

I am here, you say,

   To leave this world just a little bit better

      By being kind,

      By listening to those who need to be understood,

      By refraining from judging others…

Even though I might worry about

   The path they are taking,

      Where they might be lost,

   Their inner struggles,

   Their outward trials.

I listened. I tucked your convictions

   Away in my heart, Mom.

And I try—oh I try!

   To be this kind of woman,

   This kind of mother.

  

   

Camellia sinensis

A day dawns.
The aroma of steeping Assam
Raises my sense of peace
At the start of the day.

Astringent, assertive,
Bold, beautiful,
Citrussy...
Compared with Ceylon?

There is an inspiration
In black teas.
They launch us into the day
Without the insistence of
Black coffee…
But an insistence nonetheless.

Poetry as Remembrance

John Keats wrote, “Poetry should [...] strike the reader as words from his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.” He elucidates in another text, “The excellency of every art is its intensity.”

Keats’ observations are timeless. The distillation of feeling and “story” is still vivid in the best of contemporary fine arts, performing arts, and literary arts, much as it was thousands of years ago. We need only think of the Epic of Gilgamesh to know that poetry and storytelling were strong within the human race long before written stories came into being. Even a long epic has intensity and distillation of feeling and story. This is literature at its finest and stands abreast of the finest poetry (and prose) today.

What is different from ancient epics is Keats’ notion of poetry as the work of a single poet, a single mind remembering. In past times, poetry was the vehicle for oral history as well as an art form. Epic poetry was created and evolved (a poem is never done, after all) through a community rather than a single person. In that sense this community creation is a much more profound “remembrance” because it is a shared remembrance that contributed to the very culture that carried the poetic story with them over time and place. It is the entire culture that is the poet of the Epic of Gilgamesh, a poet that I honor as an inspiration for poets like Shakespeare, Keats, Wordsworth, …, Angelou, Boland, Glück, …, a commitment to taut language, evocative imagery, intensity, remembrance, cadence.

In this sense, the quote from Keats is his own rewriting of the responsibility of poetry that is a contemporary remembrance of poetry’s role since time immemorial.

Light on Darkness

Winter Solstice

Shines on barren boughs.

Soon, longer days of sunlight

A promise we cling to

Impatiently.

Twenty-five thousand years

Or more

Celebrating the evergreen

The warmth-giving Yule log

Joyously.

Was peace among the hopes

For the coming year?

Or did Yuletide chants

Echo life’s endless repetition

Darkly?