oh, students
One teacher asked me to give a lesson on Auden and Dickinson to his class, because they are doing a story by Sherman Alexie that mentions those authors. It was exhilarating to be able to talk about poetry again, in a classroom, after so long. And my students were beautiful, they were smiling, they talked with wonder. Poetry is magic. It opens people up. We went right up to the bell, we didn't finish, they are excited to bring their poems next week and work on them more.
I've been out of commission on sewing the past week, but my dear friend S. (all the way across the world) and I write poems and send them to one another every day. We give one another assignments, praise, criticism, encouragement--and, maybe most importantly, we create a community of words. I go into her emails with anticipation, I feel surrounded and warm. It's like getting a gift each day. Rare.
These days I do feel full of wonder. Full of luck, my favorite adjective. Finding things all over, little signs connecting the world all up. It's called beauty, I am convinced, and means mathematics, a geometry of the heart.
NEIGHBORHOOD 3
The power was out when we woke up.
This was before I had begun to bite my nails,
before I had glasses, in the room
the color of a robin’s egg. There was a radiator,
a window cloaked in yellow cloth, our red
and yellow and blue plastic cups
on the sill. And my father came in to find us
in the morning, to bring us
a song from the other edge of the house.
Everything could have been dangerous
but we didn’t know it; leaded
windows, fireplace, nightshade leaning
into the tomatoes. When the lights
went out there were white candles
in the darkness. My father had a bristly
beard. My mother set the table
while he played the guitar for her. Someone
was always singing us to sleep,
and the sewing machine humming
in the next room, and we could believe,
if we could believe, in dew on grass
or frost on grass in the morning
and midnight picnics of Ritz and raisins,
my father loving my mother all the livelong day.
- - -
And then there's this, with what, less than a month to go? Totally surreal. (And exciting, too, of course.)
I've been out of commission on sewing the past week, but my dear friend S. (all the way across the world) and I write poems and send them to one another every day. We give one another assignments, praise, criticism, encouragement--and, maybe most importantly, we create a community of words. I go into her emails with anticipation, I feel surrounded and warm. It's like getting a gift each day. Rare.
These days I do feel full of wonder. Full of luck, my favorite adjective. Finding things all over, little signs connecting the world all up. It's called beauty, I am convinced, and means mathematics, a geometry of the heart.NEIGHBORHOOD 3
The power was out when we woke up.
This was before I had begun to bite my nails,
before I had glasses, in the room
the color of a robin’s egg. There was a radiator,
a window cloaked in yellow cloth, our red
and yellow and blue plastic cups
on the sill. And my father came in to find us
in the morning, to bring us
a song from the other edge of the house.
Everything could have been dangerous
but we didn’t know it; leaded
windows, fireplace, nightshade leaning
into the tomatoes. When the lights
went out there were white candles
in the darkness. My father had a bristly
beard. My mother set the table
while he played the guitar for her. Someone
was always singing us to sleep,
and the sewing machine humming
in the next room, and we could believe,
if we could believe, in dew on grass
or frost on grass in the morning
and midnight picnics of Ritz and raisins,
my father loving my mother all the livelong day.
- - -
And then there's this, with what, less than a month to go? Totally surreal. (And exciting, too, of course.)
posted by eireann at 4:20 PM
11 comments
