Poetry Week: E. E. Cummings

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Poetry Week: Yehuda Amichai

At the Seashore
trans. by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell

The pain-people think that God is the god of joy,
the joy-people think that God is the god of pain.
The coast-people think that love is in the mountains,
and the mountain-people think that love is at the seashore
so they go down to the sea.

The waves bring back even things we haven't lost.
I choose a smooth pebble and say over it,
"I'll never see that one again."
Eternity makes more sense
in the negative:
"I'll never see. I'll never come back."

So what good will it do you to get a tan? You'll be
a sadness, roasted and beautiful, an enticing scent.

When we came up from the seashore, we didn't see the water
but near the new road we saw a deep pit
and beside it a huge wooden spool wound with heavy cable:
all the conversations of the future, all the silences.

Poetry Week: Yehuda Amichai

translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell

The Sea and the Shore

The sea and the shore are always next to each other.
Both want to learn to speak, to learn to say
one word only. The sea wants to say "shore"
and the shore "sea." They draw closer,
millions of years, to speech, to saying
that single word. When the sea says "shore"
and the shore "sea,"
redemption will come to the world,
the world will return to chaos.

I Know a Man

I know a man
who photographed the view he saw
from the window of the room where he made love
and not the face of the woman he loved there.

Poetry Week: Yehuda Amichai

Statistics
translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell

For every man in a rage there are always
two or three back-patters who will calm him,
for every weeper, many more tear-wipers,
for every happy man, plenty of sad ones
who want to warm themselves at his happiness.

And every night at least one man
can't find his way home
or his home has moved to another place
and he runs around in the streets,
superfluous.

Once I was waiting with my little son at the station
as an empty bus went by. My son said:
"Look, a bus full of empty people."

Poetry Week: Ted Kooser

The Old People

Pantcuffs rolled, and in old shoes,
they stumble over the rocks and wade out
into a cold river of shadows
far from the fire, so far that its warmth
no longer reaches them. And its light
(but for the sparks in their eyes
when they chance to look back)
scarcely brushes their faces. Their ears
are full of night: rustle of black leaves
against a starless sky. Sometimes
they hear us calling, and sometimes
they don't. They are not searching
for anything much, nor are they much
in need of finding something new.
They are feeling their way out into the night,
letting their eyes adjust to the future.

Poetry Week: Ted Kooser

The Necktie

His hands fluttered like birds,
each with a fancy silk ribbon
to weave into their nest,
as he stood at the mirror
dressing for work, waving hello
to himself with both hands.

Poetry Week

As an apology to you for not posting more regularly, I'm declaring this Poetry Week. I'm going to post a poem every day. I'm not sure yet if they'll all be by the same poet, but I can promise you they'll all be by my two or three favorite poets.

I'm starting with two poems by my very favorite, Ted Kooser. One for my grandmother, whose birthday is today, and one for all my mothers for Mothers' Day.

A Happy Birthday

This evening, I sat by an open window
and read till the light was gone and the book
was no more than a part of the darkness.
I could easily have switched on a lamp,
but I wanted to ride this day down into night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page
with the pale gray ghost of my hand.

Flow Blue China

No real flowers would give of themselves
as these do, the soft tips of their petals
easing out under the painted gold borders,
then bleeding into puffs of blue, and the aunt
who in her old age gave me these cups
and saucers, the plates, bread plates and platters,
the gravy boat, and the big covered bowl
that for seventy years she brought to her table
heaped high with buttercup potatoes,
she too, like one of these soft blue flowers,
has slipped beyond the thin line at the edge.
I lift this cup to her. Flow, blue.

We all fall down

I dislike the game Jenga.

Oh, I understand why it's supposed to be appealing--there's an element of suspense (When will it fall, when?), and an element of skill (If my hand is just a little more stable than yours...), and an element of chance (Please tell me the dog's not going to bump the table. DON'T BUMP THE TABLE!). It's construction and destruction, over and over. One wouldn't have to work very hard to pull a metaphor out of it.

But I dislike it. It's stressful to me. I like the building part--creating the tower in the first place is by far the best part of the game. Brick by brick, you create this lovely rotating pattern. The blocks tessellate beautifully. It's satisfying. Orderly and pleasing. Soothing, but not for long.

It's the suspense that causes my anxiety. You work so hard building this perfect wooden tower, then slowly dismantle it. You push its guts out and stack them on top, the whole thing becoming less and less stable with each turn. Soon it's riddled with rectangular holes, irregular and patternless and soulless. It's like Mondrian ran out of paint and made a wooden sculpture. It hurts to watch, and it hurts to participate.

But you keep going, removing blocks and stacking them on top, knowing you're killing it. It's methodical. Tortuous. Turn by turn, you're murdering it, wondering how much longer it can last. The tower becomes precarious. You remove blocks more carefully now, slowly, slowly, knowing it's almost over.

And then it is. This object that has been the absolute center of your universe for the last twenty minutes comes crashing down, onto the table or onto the floor, with a horrible clatter. You've killed it, and there's laughter and the pointing of fingers, and then we pick up the wooden bones and either put them back in their box or worse, start building again.

"You're Beautiful."

"You're beautiful."

"That's kind of you to say."

"...But?"

"But nothing. You're sweet."

"You don't believe it."

"I don't have to believe it. I love the reason you said it."

"It's true."

I sigh. "There's a line somewhere between compliments and patronization."

"Why can't you admit that I could think you're beautiful?"

Silence. "Look at me. Be objective. I'm not beautiful."

"You're not being objective, either. And why should I be objective? I love you."

I feel my brow furrowing. "It's late. I should go home."

"You don't always have to go home. You could stay here."

"I have to feed Atlas."

"Call your roommate. She'll feed him for you."

"I..." I'm close to tears and don't know why. "I have to go."

"No you don't. You don't have to." Softly.

More silence. I look away, fighting the tears.

"But if you want to, you can."

I put on my coat and wrap a scarf around my neck. "I'll call you in the morning. What time's your brother's thing tomorrow?"

"I don't know. Afternoon sometime. We don't have to go if you don't want to."

"It's okay. We'll go. It'll be nice to get out."

"I love you."

I can't meet your eyes. "I love you, too." I open the door and am met by the eager hands of the wind. It's black outside, but the bulb on the porch lights a half-circle of frantic snow. I step into the night and close the door behind me.