JUST AN ORANGE

do you think an old heart can’t sing
do you think an old heart can’t dance
with a love that belongs to spring –
nor i – till i took this glance

in a mirror long put-by – denied
the least touch of light (there being
no cause but to let it hide)
yet now there’s this sudden seeing

this astonishing flow of longing
that gives the dulled glass a shine
and so many lost wants thronging
(must i fear the eyes aren’t mine)

dream has shaken its sheets out
a freshness (discarded) restored
muted rhythms let loud beats out
(scared hopes being reassured)

unfathomable scores its chances
(love’s fingers plucking the strings)
can’t you see – this lame heart dances
can’t you hear – this dried heart sings

You, my daughter
Youngest of the pre-school ballerinas
Transported by the quick, quick movements
Of your tiny legs,
Arms floating blithely
Like the wings of angels
Your entire body in a grin of rhythmic joy
Moving in that nonchalance of joints
Sauntering in innocent defiance
Of the studied discipline demanded
By your instructor’s level tones.

How can he know
You will dance purely on a stage of starlight
With every action winged and fired by grace?

I’m scrambling an egg for my daughter.
“Why are you always whistling?” she asks.
“Because I’m happy.”
And it’s true,
Though it stuns me to say it aloud,
There was a time when I wouldn’t
Have seen it as my future.
It’s partly a matter
Of who is there to eat the egg.
The self fallen out of love with itself
Through the tedium of familiarity,
Or this little self,
So curious, so hungry,
Who emerged from the woman I love,
A woman who loves me in a way
I’ve come to think I deserve,
Now that it arrives from outside me.
Everything changes, we’re told,
And now the changes are everywhere:
The house with its morning light
That fills me like a revelation,
The yard with its trees
That cast a bit more shade each summer,
The love of a woman
That both is and isn’t confounding,
And the love
Of this clamor of questions at my waist.
Clamor of questions,
You clamor of answers,
Here’s your egg.

The glass stems of the clouds are breaking

the gray flowers are caught up

and carried in silence to their invisible mountain

a hair of music is flying

over the line of cold lakes

from which our eyes were made

everything in the world has been lost and lost

but soon we will find it again

and understand what it told us when we loved it

The good gray guardians of art
Patrol the halls on spongy shoes,
Impartially protective, though
Perhaps suspicious of Toulouse.

Here dozes one against the wall,
Disposed upon a funeral chair.
A Degas dancer pirouettes
Upon the parting of his hair.

See how she spins! The grace is there,
But strain as well is plain to see.
Degas loved the two together:
Beauty joined to energy.

Edgar Degas purchased once
A fine El Greco, which he kept
Against the wall beside his bed
To hang his pants on while he slept. 

Musicians wrestle everywhere –
All day — among the crowded air
I hear the silver strife –
And — walking — long before the morn –
Such transport breaks upon the town
I think it that “New Life”!

If is not Bird — it has no nest –
Nor “Band” — in brass and scarlet — drest –
Nor Tamborin — nor Man –
It is not Hymn from pulpit read –
The “Morning Stars” the Treble led
On Time’s first Afternoon!

Some — say — it is “the Spheres” — at play!
Some say that bright Majority
Of vanished Dames — and Men!
Some — think it service in the place
Where we — with late — celestial face –
Please God — shall Ascertain!

It’s National Poetry Month. Google that phrase and you’ll get a bevy of websites ready to provide you with a poem-a-day and such. They’ll even deliver it right to your email box if you like.

You’ll also likely run into Charles Bernstein’s article Against National Poetry Month , where he insists that NPM consists of poems that are really not worth reading, because they don’t challenge us. That the poetry marketed to the American Public just dumbs-down the understanding of the genre even more. I don’t know if Mr. Berstein is really against National Poetry Month. But he wants us to be willing to invest in poetry. Poetry may be hard to understand. Take the time to understand it. And he has a point. A nation that thinks poetry is found mostly in greeting cards isn’t really something to be proud of. All well-written poetry has something it will give up if we work to find it; some understanding inside the words; some reward.

That said, some of my favorite poems are probably understood easily by the populace and I’m not an elitist, so I say “Okay? Well, we need to start somewhere.” I have heard tell that there are those out there who belittle the compilation of poems by Garrison Keillor on similar merits. The book, Good Poems, is just that. They are good poems. And some great ones. But once they mingle together, heaven forbid, how shall we ever tell the difference? Pah! is what I say. In fact I heartily suggest picking up a copy of Good Poems because there is some really delightful stuff in there. Really fabulous. And as Keillor says himself, saying that a poem is good may be the only recommendation it needs.

And here: Obscurity Knocks by the Trashcan Sinatras. Good stuff.