JUST AN ORANGE

We stood on the rented patio
While the party went on inside.
You knew the groom from college.
I was a friend of the bride.

We hugged the brownstone wall behind us
To keep our dress clothes dry
And watched the sudden summer storm
Floodlit against the sky.

The rain was like a waterfall
Of brilliant beaded light,
Cool and silent as the stars
The storm hid from the night.

To my surprise, you took my arm–
A gesture you didn’t explain–
And we spoke in whispers, as if we two
Might imitate the rain.

Then suddenly the storm receded
As swiftly as it came.
The doors behind us opened up.
The hostess called your name.

I watched you merge into the group,
Aloof and yet polite.
We didn’t speak another word
Except to say goodnight.

Why does that evening’s memory
Return with this night’s storm–
A party twenty years ago,
Its disappointments warm?

There are so many might have beens,
What ifs that won’t stay buried,
Other cities, other jobs,
Strangers we might have married.

And memory insists on pining
For places it never went,
As if life would be happier
Just by being different.

Last week, at my other blog, I wrote about Stories; stories that suggest themselves to us because we hear something or see something and suddenly we’ve spun a yarn around a little idea that turns out to be so much more.

Story is a term we apply to a wide range of things, basically a narrative of sorts. But a story can be fiction or not. In fact we constantly tell stories about our day, our week, our life, to other people. There are probably stories we like to tell. And the way we tell them evolves–not that the truth changes, but we learn how to tell it in such a way that others are interested.

Telling stories is essential. It is a way to transmit truths. It is a way to understand ourselves and others.

This week we are looking at stories. But not just any kind of story; the story that presents it’s self in a poem, or as the case maybe, a group of poems. Of course poems have an idea they wrap themselves around, and often that idea suggests a story. But this week is not about the idea. We’re focusing on the little vignette, something that could have happened to you, or your grandmother. Maybe it didn’t. But, it could have.

The FRIDAY POLITIC~because one can’t be transcendent all the time

Not really anything astounding here this week. I was utterly disheartened by the news of a certain governor of a prominent state where I recently lived. Mostly I was sad for his three daughters and his wife. Not a lot of sympathy for him. Only that his dad made him cry over a bad move in a Monopoly game when he was seven years old. And that is a sad thing.

It appears the moral crusader was also a vindictive one, and hence, doesn’t have a lot of people even wanting to stand by his side, not many friends. And, while he may deserve it, that’s sad, too.

There was a little buzz in Washington DC as all three candidates for President of the U.S. went back to the Senate to pass some bills, and be friendly with one another for at least a few hours. And friendliness is always a good thing. We could use a little bit more of that, and a little less of the other stuff.

Someone is playing a note on a cello. It’s a low note, and as the bow moves deliberately across the string, the vibrations move through the air and into your body, where it reaches your very core. And you feel it, inside. That note has literally resonated inside of you. It’s such a fascinating feeling. And so to continue on with the theme that has developed this week–words, arranged in such a way, can do the same thing: resonate inside of us.

A poem that resonates with us causes either an empathetic or sympathetic response that binds us to those words. And it may be the sympathetic reaction that is the most powerful, because it gives us insight into something that we have not experienced ourselves.

As Merwin suggests in The Unwritten maybe all we need is one word. We just need to find it out, somehow. And he has let us know that it will not be easy. Anything that cannot be tempted by such eternals as love or time are going to be tricky to get at. Not even the threat of fire will yield up that word to us. We are left to puzzle, then. How? The poem has such a tantalizing ending. You are guaranteed to look at each pencil a little more reverently.

So maybe we haven’t discovered that word or words yet. But maybe it’s a word we can work around, hint at. Maybe that’s all poetry is, hinting around at what we really need. You know when you read it, if a poem’s gotten close.

A good line in a poem can make me positively giddy; make me laugh out loud with delight, even if the subject matter may be serious. Often lines require the context of the other lines that surround it, the whole poem is created for a reason; but this line by the late Leslie Norris says just as much outside of the poem as it does inside the poem it resides in.

Read it:  There. Can you feel it? And now you know. That’s the way you want to go, isn’t it.

And Sally Taylor, her mother dying in the next room
heard women’s voices, young and laughing,
come into fetch the old lady. (from the poem Borders)
(FYI: This post taken and reworked a bit from an early post written for Bells on Their Toes.)

I surprised myself in college when I figured out that not only did I love reading and literature, I was interested in language. What’s the difference? I guess the study of language deals with the technical aspects of what makes up literature. I find those technical aspects fascinating, and I’ll admit it right here: I really do find diagramming sentences, yes, fun. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised. In elementary I always liked the language part the best.

{a sweet boy & his dictionary}

There are a lot of ways to define the power of a word, whether technical or poetical, or both. Words are powerful. Look one up, just for fun. You’ll learn something, or make a connection you hadn’t thought of before. In this perilous world, I am tempted to keep a dictionary by my side at all times, just in case.

Inside this pencil
crouch words that have never been written
never been spoken
never been taught

they’re hiding

they’re awake in there
dark in the dark
hearing us
but they won’t come out
not for love not for time not for fire

even when the dark has worn away
they’ll still be there
hiding in the air
multitudes in days to come may walk through them
breathe them
be none the wiser

what script can it be
that they won’t unroll
in what language
would I recognize it
would I be able to follow it
to make out the real names
of everything

maybe there aren’t
many
it could be that there’s only one word
and it’s all we need
it’s here in this pencil

every pencil in the world
is like this

-W.S. Merwin

That pack of scoundrels

tumbling through the gate

emerges

as the Order of the State.

-Stanley Kunitz