God Says Yes To Me: Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

It might be a little obvious, (and I don't really know what I mean by that) but, I still like this poem. I think I'm especially liking the part about God saying it's just fine to do "exactly what you want to."

I'm always curious about these sorts of poems and things, where people write in "God's voice". Like, is this just what you want God to say? Or is it what you believe God says?

Is there really a difference?

My book club was talking about this at our last meeting. Is God a voice you hear inside yourself, and do you have to call it God or is it okay to just say it's your "inner voice." And, does it really matter?

I wonder sometimes what I believe, myself. I'm okay with not knowing. What I mean by that is, I think I really believe that God is a mystery, and that there is a whole lot that we'll just never know. And I think that's okay; I don't really want to know everything. I know what I believe within myself to be right and wrong, and I know how to listen to that little voice (whether or not I choose to act upon what is says is something altogether different...). Now, does that come from me, or from God?

It really doesn't matter to me. I do believe that we are all created from a Something, and we're all connected in some way, so whether I believe it's God talking to me or not, doesn't make any difference since whatever Is, Is. Just because I may or may not believe in God, doesn't mean God doesn't (or does) exist.

However, God being a Creator, I do think that he or she or it is more inclined to say Yes, than No. I think God leaves room for error, and doesn't mind if you make mistakes as long as you decide to try and keep learning from them. And I think it's each of our duties to become as fully our own true self as we are able.

Side note: sometimes, I wish I were more melodramatic. I'm sure my friends and family are glad that I'm not (or maybe I am, but I just don't know it!), but sometimes I wish I were. You know? It's gotta feel good sometimes.

Naming the Stars: Joyce Sutphen

This present tragedy will eventually
turn into myth, and in the mist
of that later telling the bell tolling
now will be a symbol, or, at least,
a sign of something long since lost.

This will be another one of those
loose changes, the rearrangement of
hearts, just parts of old lives
patched together, gathered into
a dim constellation, small consolation.

Look, we will say, you can almost see
the outline there: her fingertips
touching his, the faint fusion
of two bodies breaking into light.

Oh man. I woke up this morning feeling really sad and scared and lonely about Terri being gone three days a week, and then my 'poetry daily' pulls up this poem.

I don't really feel like discussing it. We watched a DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) DVD over the weekend (for Terri's work), and one of the skills for getting through hard emotions was to distract yourself with listening to music, or reading, or watching a movie. But, the video said, don't MATCH your emotions. If you're sad, don't go watching a sad movie.

So this poem, while not exactly matching my emotions, is a sort of sad, melancholy poem, and it just makes me feel worse.

I found it on a high-school curriculum site, though. It is perfect for teenagers in the midst of a breakup. I can just see the dramatic sighs and girls writing it down in their notebooks to cry over later.

January: John Updike

The days are short,
The sun a spark
Hung thin between
The dark and dark

Say what you will about winter, I kind of like it.

Of course, I'm living in the Bay Area, California.

But still. I've been through dark, gray, wet Oregon winters, and a frigid, icy, snowy, gale-force windy winter in Northern Finland.

And I still like it.

I like hibernating, being cozy in warm sweaters, making thick soups and warm breads, staying inside because "it's too cold out."

And, call me crazy, I like the short days. I always like the return of the sun, but the short days make me want to be home. It's cozy.

The Summer Day: Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Tell me, what else should I have done? To make a prayer. To spend my life. What else?

I've been thinking this week about how I am spending my life. It's one of those things - you don't know exactly how much you have, but it's not something you want to hoard, either. You want to share your life, live expansively - you never know how much you have, but while you have it, you can have as much 'life' as you choose.

Do I want an overflowing palm, or a tight fist?

I don't know exactly how to pray, either. I usually just say, "Thank you" to the general direction of the sky, when something I need or want happens, or when I am moved. I say, "Please help" when I need help. I let my heart fill up and tears flow when I see something beautiful. I try to pay attention; to things, to people, to nature.

What else?

How do I want to spend my life, my one wild and precious life?

A good reminder about why I'm struggling to complete my personal 5- and 10-year plan. Part of me wants to have a good plan, ask for good things, construct a 'good' life that is what I want. And part of me wants to let things unfold as they will (which they will do anyway).

Maybe the key is to 'plan' for days of meadow-walking and beachcombing. How do I plan a life full of joy?

On Tenterhooks: Dick Allen

Suspense seldom kills, but too often
stretched between the hooks, the cloth
drying in the sun so its weave might be straightened
rips in one section and the whole taut fabric,
so like a riveted drumskin or the canvas of a trampoline,
goes slack, its practical use over —
that anxiety which kept us searching the heavens,
wringing our hands, wiping our brows,
questioning the outcome,
only a matter of tension: that intangible
way of holding things we'd just as soon let go.

Letting go. I think when I think of letting go, of holding things that I'd just as soon let go, I don't really think of suspense, but more about anxiety. Maybe they're different names for the same thing - what will happen? How will this turn out?

It's an interesting idea, that it's just a matter of tension, of holding on or letting go. I suppose that's true. What happens if you just let go of suspense, of tension that you don't want to have any more?

What's the use of holding on to tension, of anxiety, of suspense? Sometimes we can't help it, it just is. Lots of religions have been founded on that 'letting go', of giving over to something larger than ourselves, of just being.

I'm interested in the line of the cloth being stretched taut to straighten it's weave. What does that mean? That by stretching ourselves tight with suspense, with anxiety, we're attempting to straighten what really makes us, us. Hmm.

I don't know. But it's interesting to think about. Why fight what really makes us, us... (and, can letting go include embracing some of those anxieties and suspenseful times?) I read something in Oprah (I think) about how we should all try to be our own 'brand', whether people like you or not. Water's boring, why not be really tart lemonade (which some people adore, others can do without).

Well. With that (a bunch of words going nowhere), that's the poem of the day.

What I Did To Time: Kate Light

What I did to time was ball it up, and
throw it out, when I was unhappy,
years ago; chucked it, sprained my hand
wadding it tight, waiting for an end,
the end of a long season, haul
too long to tolerate, questions
I couldn't answer, changes I couldn't make, tall
orders hovering. Couldn't take suggestions
(stubborn pride); couldn't find solutions
(ignorance, fear); but I could hold my breath
and squeeze away a year—nuisance
years fell into faints and met their death.
Now I'd give anything to have that plethora, that stack;
to feel its truth and call its slow pace back.

Boy, who doesn't feel like this sometimes.

I feel like I've definitely been in danger of doing this in the past couple years. Just gritting my teeth, 'getting through', waiting for change. I don't want to do this. Even when things are hard, I want to try to stay present. I don't want to wake up and realize I've gritted 10 years away.

I think I'm getting better at it, recently. Just trying to stay alive in the moment, even when I'd rather be anywhere else.

I read something yesterday that made a difference for me: Saying no can be the ultimate self-care. Saying no to something means saying yes to something else, and maybe that's a way of staying present when things are hard. Making choices, rather than just be swept along in the misery. Sometimes it is all you can do to stay afloat, but when choices appear, making conscious ones maybe can make a difference. Slow time down.

My pledge for today: stay with it.

Falling Stars: Rainer Maria Rilke

Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes--do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.

Loving this poem today.

(completely shallow sideline thought, I just found a pair of earrings called "Seeing Stars" that Terri is going to exchange the not-quite-right earrings for)

Making wishes on falling stars. I used to do this (who didn't?). I forget, in the city, to look for them. When we go camping, I'm going to make an effort to find some.

I've been thinking a lot about wishing, or making wishes (and making them come true) this weekend. I've been taking very good care of myself, and I'm feeling the little beginnings of wishes swim to the surface again. I'm glad. I was feeling so drained and devoid of future-wishes. I hate feeling like that.

I like to think, in the last couple lines, about the stars dissolving into the night, and taking our wishes with them. The image I have is of the wishes being released into the night sky, to the Universe.

(Am I getting a little too 'precious' here?)

But really. The stars burn up and go out (do they really?) but we are left here. Maybe this about how it's our responsibility to show up for our wishes, as they begin to come true. I know in my life, many times I've perversely run away when I saw that something I'd wished for was starting to come true (not going to the college I wanted to, even though I was accepted... turning down opportunities because I was too scared to take them).

Mostly, I just love the language of this poem. I feel like I want to read it aloud, over and over.

The Physiology of Joy: Kathleen Flenniken

In the bleakest centers of the body, researchers
have discovered tiny pockets of joy,
like the undersized bubbles that cling
to the corners of parched mouths.

We're trying to understand, the spokesman said.
He was staring into the camera. They might be
an immune system response to pain
or evidence that joy
in order to be released
must coalesce to a critical mass.
Then he leaned into our living room
to confide

that in his college anatomy class,
sometimes the bodies would sigh
at the end of a long dissection,
an unaccountable flutter under his hands.
Once he was last one out
of that blue gymnasium of a laboratory.
I don't know if it's proof, he said,

but when I switched off the lights
the transom windows glowed.

First, I had to go look up what transom windows are.

This is one of those poems where I'm like, I don't know what it means, but I like it! Just beautiful language, an interesting thought, something for my brain to chew on. Bubbles of joy? Hidden deep away in the body?

Joy bubbles up sometimes, it's true. Sometimes, out of nowhere. Sometimes, in our darkest hours, we feel inexplicable joy. Is this what she means?

Who couldn't use some more of that? Hidden pockets of joy, just waiting for the right moment, the right confluence of events, a patch of warm sun or five minutes of peace.

Homage To My Hips: Lucille Clifton

these hips are big hips.
they need space
to move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places.
these hips
are free hips.
they don't like
to be held back.
these hips
have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man
and spin him like a top

First of all, YEAH!

As part of my New Year's Resolution, I'm trying an experiment. Every morning, before or after my shower, I'm going to look in the mirror and say, "Wow. What a fantastic figure. What a beautiful body. Check me out!!" Regardless of how I'm actually feeling. Let's see what happens.

This whole body-image craziness that our modern society inflicts upon everyone is interesting. I was looking at magazine covers this weekend, at the grocery store. On one: pictures of how Mary-Kate, Kiera, etc. are too thin. Is it anorexia? Do they actually eat? We must save the skinny women from themselves! And then, on the next, the very next magazine over, it says, "Jessica Simpson puffs up: Gains 27 pounds!"

How do they know she gained 27 pounds?

Incidentally, on the next magazine over from that one, it says, "How Jessica got thin for her new man!"

Was this before or after the 27-pound gain?

Crazy-making. I've been thinking a lot about this. All that energy spent on worrying over 5 or 10 (or 27) pounds. There's being concerned about weight for legitimate reasons (health, etc.). And then there's this crazymaking stuff. I heard on Oprah (or somewhere) that daughters will inherit their mother's wounds. So I'm trying very hard to heal myself on this particular issue so that my daughter (or son) will maybe have a better chance at being free from this particular baggage. Or at least have some perspective.

I'd like to get back into running, because it feels good and I feel so happy and proud of myself when I run. I'd like to do weight training to build my strength, my bones.

And, it feels great to look in the mirror and like what you see. Of course.

But I will not say mean things to myself about my body. That's my promise to myself, this year. If I miss a few workouts (or keep putting off starting), I'll be kind to myself. I'll eat what I want, when I'm hungry. I'll cook healthy things for myself and Terri. I will love my hips and how they move, how they show off my curves, how they support me and my life. Those stretch marks? Battle scars, baby. I'm living my life.

I will be grateful to have such a fantastic, healthy body. I will not be at war with myself over it.

Change yourself and change the world. I'm not buying this crap any more.

the little horse is newlY: ee cummings

the little horse is newlY

Born)he knows nothing;and feels
everything;all around whom is

perfectly a strange
ness Of sun
light and of fragrance and of

Singing)is ev
erywhere(a welcom
ing dream:is amazing)
a worlD.and in

this world lies:smoothbeautifuL
ly folded;a(brea
thing and a gro

Wing)silence,who;
is:somE

oNe.

OK, so here's a really good example of why he's my favorite poet. This is one of those that in high school, people are like, "What the f*^k?" and give up. But for me, if you take the time to read the words and look at the arrangement, it cuts through clunky language and goes straight to emotion and image and something deeper.

I'll leave the in-depth analyzing to the poor high school teachers. But this poem makes me happy. A little new life is born, the world is wonderful, and there's a benevolent, silent Someone watching and caring.

When I lived in Finland, I lived on a dairy farm for awhile. One night I got called out to the barns to watch a calf being born. It was freezing cold, but the barn was warm, and I remember watching my host father working so hard and caring so deeply about these animals, gently coaching the mother, patting her side, as she labored. Finally the little calf was born. I said, Tervetuola! (Welcome!) I walked outside and was treated to a display of the Northern Lights, over a blanket of sparkling snow. We lived on the edge of a forest, so there were snow-covered trees just on the edge of my vision, and a warmly glowing farmhouse ahead of me.

That was one of the times I was really, really glad to have been sent to Finland, and would not have traded places with anyone in the world.

He knows nothing and feels everything.

The Journey: Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

I love this poem. This is one of my all-time favorites, most inspirational, most instructive... I feel like as long as I keep these lines in mind, I can't go too wrong.

It really helped me during some difficult times, and I feel like it's a good guide for life anyway. Especially for us types who feel like we can and should save everyone else's life before ours.

In The Middle: Barbara Crooker

of a life that's as complicated as everyone else's,
struggling for balance, juggling time.
The mantle clock that was my grandfather's
has stopped at 9:20; we haven't had time
to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,
the chimes don't ring. One day you look out the window,
green summer, the next, and the leaves have already fallen,
and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown,
our parents gone, it happened so fast. Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between morning's quick coffee
and evening's slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,
mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies
twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between;
his tail is a metronome, 3/4 time. We'll never get there,
Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging
us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,
sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh
of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up
in love, running out of time.

Exactly how I feel right now. And for no particular reason, we're just busy and we have a new schedule and there isn't a lot of time that isn't spent either working or resting, right now.

Well, it's not exactly how I feel. I feel more 'out of time', as in, my time hasn't settled into a routine, I feel all out of sync with everything. Not exactly rushed (although a little of that in some areas) but more just all disjointed and out of routine. Or maybe, not in a routine that I enjoy, quite yet. It's post-holidays, which should be a slow time, but I'm catching up everywhere and won't get a chance to really rest until February.

Anyway. Poem. We have antique clocks that have stopped, in our house, too. Too busy, not enough time to fix them.

I'd like to change this. I was thinking about this this morning, and last night. Part of this large journey to create a life that I love, is to create days that I love, all the time. That's part of why I'm doing this project. To take a few minutes, every day, out of regular time, to read a poem and reflect on it for a few minutes.

Taking time for love, for health, and for joy: that's how I would like to spend more of my time.

Still Life: Carl Sandburg

Cool your heels on the rail of an observation car.
Let the engineer open her up for ninety miles an hour.
Take in the prairie right and left, rolling land and new hay crops, swaths of new hay laid in the sun.
A gray village flecks by and the horses hitched in front of the post-office never blink an eye.
A barnyard and fifteen Holstein cows, dabs of white on a black wall map, never blink an eye.

A signalman in a tower, the outpost of Kansas City, keeps his place at a window with the serenity of a bronze statue on a dark night when lovers pass whispering.

This is one of those poems where at first glance I'm like, Hmm. Boring. But then I read it again.

Cool your heels. Slow down. Take a look around. Life's happening at different paces everywhere.

I like this poem. It's a 'picture poem' and we all know how much I like those. It kind of makes me happy. I think about going back to work today and how I have so much work to do and I get a little anxious. But now I'm reminded to just take it one task at a time, get things done well, just do my work and it will all happen in good time. Divide up the day like I would if I had a farmer's job.

Milk the cows. Check email and phone messages.
Put out the hay. Make my list of tasks.
Start the tractor. Start on one of them.
Plow the field. Get the task done.
Feed the chickens. Start another one.
Go in for lunch. Take a break.

I mean, it's not rocket science. It's my job. It makes it somehow more meaningful to think of it as just doing my part in keeping the world going 'round. Somebody feeds cows and chickens. Somebody else makes a newsletter and a set of promo materials.

Maybe I should get a nice picture of a farm and hang it in my space.

i thank You God: by ee cummings

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting. -- E. E. Cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginably You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

I actually read quite a few ee cummings poems today, looking for the right one to fit how I feel (which is maybe odd, since I feel sick today, and what speaks to me in cummings poetry is the joy and aliveness of his words). However, this is a classic and a beautiful poem no matter how I'm feeling. I'm feeling sick, a little worried, tired and a little bit down. So thinking about God's leaping greenly spirits might pull me out of myself a bit. When I read his poetry, I just want to sit and skim and settle into one or two as they call me... I like to read his slim volumes front, back and sideways. I've always thought that you had to read a cummings poem as if you were reading a circle, to make the words make sense. I love the nonlinear joyfulness of them. They get to the heart of the emotions. Maybe that's what it is that I love about his poetry - when I read them, I feel strong emotions; it speaks directly to my emotional heart.

This is a love poem. It's a poem to God, to the Earth, to the spirits of the day and of nature. I've also heard it read at weddings, which is lovely.

Saying "yes!" to life. It makes me think of Yoko Ono's exhibit where she had a telescope pointed at the ceiling and had written, so tiny, a "yes". Yes to everything.

Maybe this wasn't the right poem for today. I love it, but I'm cold, sick, tired, having one of those days where I fall back a step or two in my march towards A Life I Love. I'm not feeling like saying "yes".

Maybe what it's really about is that no matter how you're feeling, the Earth is saying Yes, God is saying Yes... there are Yesses all around me, depending on where I look. Even if all I feel like saying is "No," there is still plenty of "Yes" the minute I change my mind.

And maybe saying "No" is really a "Yes" of sorts, anyway. I'm saying "Yes" to staying in bed and trying to give myself a break.

Well. I haven't done justice to this, one of my favorite poems of all, but that's okay.

Flare, #2: Mary Oliver

You still recall, sometimes, the old barn on your great-grandfather's farm, a place you visited once, and went into, all alone, while the grownups sat and talked in the house.

It was empty, or almost. Wisps of hay covered the floor, and some wasps sang at the windows, and maybe there was a strange fluttering bird high above, disturbed, hoo-ing a little and staring down from a messy ledge with wild, binocular eyes.

Mostly, though, it smelled of milk, and the patience of animals; the give-offs of the body were still in the air, a vague ammonia, not unpleasant.

Mostly, though, it was restful and secret, the roof high up and arched, the boards unpainted and plain.

You could have stayed there forever, a small child in a corner, on the last raft of hay, dazzled by so much space that seemed empty, but wasn't.

Then--you still remember--you felt the rap of hunger--it was noon--and you turned from that twilight dream and hurried back to the house, where the table was set, where an uncle patted you on the shoulder for welcome, and there was your place at the table.

This poem could have been written by me, about going to my grandpa's farm in the summer. There was an old barn across from the house, and we loved going in there. We loved climbing into the lofts and looking out the big picture 'window' (no glass, just a big square cut in the barn wall). Sometimes there were cows in there. We had to be careful and watch out for rattlesnakes.

Most of my cousins were farm kids. I always felt sort of out of place on the farm. I knew enough to help and get by, but it wasn't where I felt at home, although I wanted it to be. I remember my cousin Amy one time made fun of me because I asked if they had ducks or goats on their farm. She scoffed, as if farms really had that many different animals on them (most farms out where they lived had just cows and maybe horses, possibly a sheep or two, but nothing like Old MacDonald). I felt indignant; of course a farm could have different animals, she was the uninformed one.

Restful and secret: exactly. My ex boyfriend Nate lived on a farm. They had a barn that I loved, very much. I used to go up to their farm just to hang out around the barn, just to walk in the woods by the cattle. I like how sunlight comes through the boards in the walls. I like the smell of hay. I like that there are jobs to do, repairs to be made, and that it's work that matters. Animals and plants are depending on you.

And how this poem wraps up, with running back to the house where a friendly uncle greets you. A page out of my childhood. My grandmother made plates of sandwiches for everyone. White bread, with mayonnaise and sliced turkey or roast beef. Sometimes peanut butter and jam for the kids. Glasses of milk. Lots of cookies. Everyone sitting around the table telling stories.

This makes me sad to think about. I miss my grandpa's presence here on earth. I feel very sad for this farm heritage that is so far away from me. I see now that part of the reason I want so badly to have my own house and a little bit of land is to recreate this kind of experience. Walk outside, work in the field (garden, flowerbeds), come back inside for lunch. Feel connected, tell stories, sit and laugh and eat and play with the kids. It's so normalizing for me. I feel like if I had no farm to go to, ever, no outside yard, no family gatherings... what a loss.

And yet, I never felt truly connected to the farm side of the family. I always felt more at home with the surfer side, the kooky side. But I feel, in my heart, a yearning for that sort of down-home rootedness.

I always wanted to have my place at the table, I guess.

Reconciliation: Walt Whitman

Word over all, beautiful as the sky!
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be
utterly lost;
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly
softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world,
For my enemy is dead--a man divine as myself is dead;
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin--I draw
near;
I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the
coffin.

I flipped through my poetry book this morning trying to find a poem that felt 'right' to read today. It was very early, I'm home sick with a cough, and I wanted something gentle. I'm not sure this is gentle, but something about it struck me as beautiful.

It's a war poem, and I never quite got into Whitman's war poetry, although I know it's very powerful and meaningful.

Again I think I like the imagery, and I like the idea that Night and Death wash the face of the earth (and our souls) clean, over and over.

I like the idea that all deeds and events, no matter how horrible or scary or shameful, are eventually washed away (although hopefully the lessons are not). Maybe it's a poem about forgiveness. After all, the title is 'Reconciliation'.

A man divine as myself is dead. Shea asked me yesterday about loving one's self, taking care of yourself as much as you take care of somebody that you love. I guess this makes me think about laying our internal enemies (who are really ourselves), to rest. One that I am ready to lay to rest is the mean one who beats me up about my body, my creativity, my lack of 'success'. This is an enemy I'm ready to put in the coffin. Respectfully; she was only mean because she didn't know how to speak with love. She thought she was being motivating.

Reconciliation. Beautiful as the sky.

Unharvested: Robert Frost

A scent of ripeness from over a wall.
And come to leave the routine road
And look for what has made me stall,
There sure enough was an apple tree
That had eased itself of its summer load,
And of all but its trivial foliage free,
Now breathed as light as a lady's fan.
For there had been an apple fall
As complete as the apple had given man.
The ground was one circle of solid red.

May something go always unharvested!
May much stay out of our stated plan,
Apples or something forgotten and left,
So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.

I've always liked Robert Frost. I like his thoughtfulness, care for nature, and sort of slow cadence that makes you picture every line. I find that I enjoy poetry that creates scenes in my mind; it's easier for me to 'get' the metaphor. Maybe that's why I dream that way.

Anyway. This project is not going to be like a big English assignment. I'm just going to write what I think. Analyze or not. Random associations. Etc. It's just for me.

So this poem makes me think of a couple of things. First, of our apple tree in our back yard, growing up (and how much I hated harvesting apples, although I can still hear the sound they make when tossed into the buckets).

(side note: an advantage to getting up early with Terri and then doing this is that I get to see the sunrise -- it's so beautiful this morning!)

I also like the line, "May much stay out of our stated plan." This reminds me not to plan too carefully. Leave room for happy surprises, for apple falls that require time to enjoy.

It also makes me think of wabi-sabi, that Japanese term for a certain type of imperfect beauty (to put it very loosely). Things falling as they may. I like to think about living my life with this sort of attentive unplanned-ness... making plans, but allowing for random events and appreciating their beauty.

Weaving The Song

And such as it is to be of these, more or less, I am
And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.
-- Song of Myself, Walt Whitman

My goal: to read one poem a day, and record my impressions/thoughts about them here in this blog.

Why? To recultivate an appreciation of poety, and to bring more joy and beauty into my life. Poetry touches something deep within me, something that doesn't get much voice in my busy everyday life. This is an attempt to reach out to that place, and weave my own tapestry so that the outside matches the inside more closely.

Thoughts? Comments? Please post!