Well, that didn't work...

Well, it was a good experiment. And fun while it lasted. But from now on, if I do any poetry analysis, it will be done at my all-in-one blog at:

www.never-travelled.blogspot.com

Thanks!

Summer: Mary Oliver

Leaving the house,
I went out to see
The frog, for example,
in her satiny skin;
and her eggs
like a slippery veil;
and her eyes
with their golden rims;
and the pond
with its risen lilies;
and its warmed shores
dotted with pink flowers;
and the long, windless afternoons;
and the white heron
like a dropped cloud,
taking one slow step
then standing awhile then taking
another, writing
her own soft-footed poem
through the still waters.

Ok, let's just face it. I adore Mary Oliver. I only want to read Mary Oliver poetry lately. And, apparently, I only want to blog about her too.

But that's okay. I selected this poem because I just got back from one of those slow summer evening walks. I didn't see any herons, although it's certainly possible around here, and I do see them on a regular basis on one of my walks. Tonight I mostly saw cats. And a few squirrels.

I just like to think about the coming summer. It's almost here. One might say it IS here, but we've yet to have our first big summer heat, our first too-hot night. My favorite season is autumn, without a doubt. But my favorite seasonal experience is probably a warm summer evening, a quiet stroll, just observing who is out and about. It seems everyone is out when it's warm and the light is long. Cats, mice, snakes, birds -- oh, and people too.

Tonight I saw three girls playing on a rope swing, suspended from a tree branch. They were laughing like crazy and having the best time. I had to stop and watch, and smile. I could have watched them all night. We had a tire swing in our back yard. It didn't work very well; unless you were very careful, you usually ended up hitting the tree trunk. But we loved it anyway, and I remember the view once you really got going -- the trees above Mrs. Welchel's house, and the way they rustled. It was right near the grape arbor, right next to the wood pile (and later, the wood shed). I'd swing as my dad gardened, or hauled wood, or mowed the lawn. As my mom planted flowers, or sewed (and I could hear the sewing machine softly in the house).

That tree was (and is) an ancient, gnarled apple tree. The last time I was home, it was looking a little sad. It was off balance, leaning far to the left, supported by beams my dad lovingly constructed to help it stay upright. Isn't that what we do, when something we love needs some help? We prop them up.

Anyway. Summer is almost here. I have plans. I will visit friends. I will walk to the soft-serve ice cream place down the block. I will go kayaking. I will see otters. And I will take lots of evening walks. Maybe there'll be some frogs, if I'm lucky.

Have You Ever Tried To Enter The Long Black Branches: Mary Oliver

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
While the soul, after all, is only a window,
and the opening of the window no more difficult
than the wakening from a little sleep.
Only last week I went out among the thorns and said
to the wild roses:
deny me not,
but suffer my devotion.
Then, all afternoon, I sat among them.
Maybe I even heard a curl or tow of music,
damp and rouge red, hurrying from their stubby buds,
from their delicate watery bodies.
For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
Fall in! Fall in!


This is a much longer poem, which you can read here. (caution: it has dippy music, but worth enduring for the poem)

All day today I've been feeling the tight crush of anxiety in my chest. I'm not sure why. I saw my extended family last night - maybe I'm letting in the feelings of missing them, feeling like I'm on the fringe of family, wanting to be a part of things, not sure if I'm entirely welcome. I feel like this on both sides of my family - not exactly a part of things, yet not exactly apart. Kind of nowhere. But I love these relatives so much, and I feel deeply connected in an unspoken way. My cousins and I share such similar traits: awkward yet friendly, shy but welcoming, all quirks and smiles and trying to figure out how to be in the world. I see the similarities to my dad, and I miss him, and my brother. I wish I'd stop trying to fit myself into some box and just expand to fill my own space.

This month I've decided to do two things: appreciate my job, and take better care of myself. I'm doing a pretty good job with both. I'm trying to be in my body, and be in my life. I do love parts of my job, very much. And I'm finding it easier than I thought to eat healthier, take real care of myself. It's a pleasant surprise to find out how much I like things not overly sweetened, and rediscovering how fun it is to try new vegetables. I'm really enjoying it.

I'm taking a break creatively, but I feel like there are lots of things just below the surface. It's stressful not having Terri here, and I am conserving energy and trying not to put too much pressure on myself. But I feel the urge to make new jewelry, try new painting styles, make collages, sew something... soon that urge will be irrisistible, and it will come pouring forth. I'm happy now to tend my life so that when that torrent comes, I'll be rested, healthy, happy and ready.

I feel very much like I'm in a stage of preparation, and I'm letting it just unfold. Preparing for whatever is next at work, in my creative life, in all parts of my life. I'm not feeling too much pressure to do anything but listen and wait. I like this. Waiting for the light to shine on whichever door opens next. Gathering up resources, opening my hands.

A Dream Of Trees: Mary Oliver

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company.
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.
There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.
I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?

Obviously there are a lot of ways you could read this poem, but tonight I'm reading it as saying that to wish for the perfect, quiet solution -- away from everything -- is to completely miss out on life. Who ever made music of a mild day? Stuff happens. Life is messy, messy, messy. I've had the experience lately of friends telling me, in different ways, that they are looking for the right way to: have a relationship, have friendships, have a career, be themselves, be someone. I'm guilty of this myself, as we all are. But I think it's interesting what's being reflected back at me, sometimes. Interesting connections are happening.

Life is messy. Love the mess! Love the arguments, and spilled cat food, and things that didn't work out as planned. Stop trying so hard. Stop trying to be something that I'm not (perfect, always agreeable, got it under control). What's so interesting about that? Not much.

Life is messy. I read an article recently on wabi-sabi, something I'm getting more interested in. The beauty of impermanence, of imperfection. Something is beautiful because it's not perfect.

I wish that were easier to remember, but again, life is messy. The learning is the thing. Being in the mess, rather than away from it. Celebrate the mess.

A Day!: Emily Dickinson

A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!
Your prayers, oh Passer by!
From such a common ball as this
Might date a Victory!
From marshallings as simple
The flags of nations swang.
Steady—my soul: What issues
Upon thine arrow hang!

Yeah. Um, I don't know what the rest of the poem means, but I love the first line. I think I might have to print that out and post it at my desk at work. Help! Help! Another Day!

I looked up Miss Emily Dickinson because I've been thinking about expression, and being your own true self (regardless of what that may look like on the outside), and how each of our gifts, no matter how small, matters in the world somehow.

Take Miss D. She, by all accounts, was a housemouse. She wrote short, spare poetry. And yet, over 100 years later, her poems are taught in every high school, and are an inspiration to introverts everywhere. I wonder if she longed for fame, or if she just wrote because she liked it, and the (posthumous?) fame was incidental? I should look up her history.

I've just been thinking about my own talents, small (or big) as they may be. Sometimes I get sucked into thinking that I need to Make Something Of Myself. When really, maybe just being myself as I am, and helping others as I can, and doing what pleases me, is good enough (or better!).

To be a geek and quote The Lord Of The Rings: "Even the smallest person can change the course of the future." Or, can change somebody's life. Even their own.

To continue on the geeky quote train, Carlos Castenada says, "The basic difference between an ordinary person and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary person takes everything as a blessing or a curse." --Don Juan

So that even if it's a Help! Help! kind of day, the challenge is there. Do I take it as a curse? Or do I take it as a challenge? Maybe that's the challenge itself: to face things as challenges, rather than sink into victimhood.

But that's a topic for another day.

Risk: Anais Nin

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.

I feel like I'm getting there. It's amazing the constant challenge to reasses, be honest with yourself, over and over and over checking to make sure that you're being true to yourself. Or true to myself. I try to avoid the shoulds and then find that I've gathered more new shoulds while avoiding the old.

I don't want to remain tightly held in bud. I want to blossom, fully; to be exuberant and gorgeously flawed.

Walking that narrow edge between safety and danger. Risking too little, then sometimes too much. Growth is painful, no matter what age I am.

Mostly, it's the day-in and day-out task of forgiving myself for being imperfect, tired, uninspired, faulty. What's that new pop psychology phrase? Radical self-acceptance? Right. I'll try.

A Quiet Skin: Laurie Sheck

Thinking has a quiet skin.
But I feel the break and fled of things inside it,
Blue hills most gentle in calm light, then stretches of assail
And ransack. Such tangles of charred wreckage, shrapnel-bits
Singling and singeing where they fall. I feel the stumbling gait of what I am,
The quiet uproar of undone, how to be hidden is a tempting, violent thing—
Each thought breaking always in another,
All the unlawful elsewheres rushing in.

This feels like an introvert poem, and as an introvert, I kind of identify with it. On the outside, I'm quiet, reserved, thoughtful, calm. On the inside, I can be quaking with fear, intensely angry or irritated, absorbed in observing others, or joyful. But quiet on the outside.

I sometimes wish I were more extraverted; able to express right then what I'm thinking or feeling. It takes time, though. Rarely can I immediately even identify what I'm feeling, or my opinion about something. I need reflection and quietness to sort out how I feel from the tumult of narrative and emotion that runs through my mind. The quiet uproar.

It is tempting to remain hidden. I'm trying to live out loud a little more, speak my mind when I know it, say what I think (when I figure that out). It's scary, but good. I want to be seen -- but only on my terms. Not raw. Not by just anyone.