The Rain

I can't handle the rain today. It makes me feel like this.

DÉJEUNER DU MATIN

Il a mis le café
Dans la tasse
Il a mis le lait
Dans la tasse de café
Il a mis le sucre
Dans le café au lait
Avec la petite cuiller
Il a tourné
Il a bu le café au lait
Et il a reposé la tasse
Sans me parler
Il a allumé
Une cigarette
Il a fait des ronds
Avec la fumée
Il a mis les cendres
Dans le cendrier
Sans me parler
Sans me regarder
Il s’est levé
Il a mis
son chapeau sur sa tête
Il a mis
Son manteau de pluie
Parce qu’il pleuvait
Et il est parti
Sous la pluie
Sans une parole
Sans me regarder
Et moi j’ai pris
Ma tête dans ma main
Et j’ai pleuré.

-Prévert

An Old Man Performs Alchemy on His Doorstep at Christmastime

Cream of Tartar, commonly used to lift meringue and
angel food cake, is actually made from crystallized fine wine.


After they stopped singing for him,
the carolers became transparent in the dark,
and he stepped into their emptiness to say
he lost his wife last week, please
sing again. Their voices filled with gold.
Last week, his fedora nodded hello to me
on the sidewalk, and the fragile breath
of kindness that passed between us
made something sweet of a morning
that had frightened me for no earthly reason.
Surely, you know this by another name:
the mysteries we intake, exhale, could be
sitting on our shelves, left on the bus seat
beside us. Don't wash your hands.
You fingered them at the supermarket,
gave them to the cashier; intoxicated tonight,
she'll sing in the streets. Think of the old man.
Who knew he kept the secret of levitation,
transference, and lightness filling a winter night--
an effortless, crystalline powder
that could almost seem transfigured from loss.



--Anna George Meek

As Death Approaches

I can't believe I'm laughing!
I'd have sworn I'd be
shaking or sniveling.
And I sure didn't expect
a limousine.
I've never been in a limousine.
No biggy.
I've had better than fame.
Who needs the pressure?
As for fortune, I'm filthy.
That's why I'm laughing.
I've had so much love:
the giving, the getting.
It's shameful.
It's embarrassing.
And it's too late.
No one can take it away!
And I've had the pain
to help me appreciate it.
Thank God for the pain!
Easy for me to say
now that I'm going!
But no, seriously,
the kicks in the teeth,
the gut, the rugs
pulled out, slammed doors,
setbacks, snubs.
Without them, I'd
never have recognized
Love, bedraggled,
plain eyes shining,
happy to see me.
Do I want more?
Of course I want more!
I always want more
of everything: money, hugs,
lovemaking, art, butter,
woods, flowers, the sea,
M&Ms, chips, tops, bottoms,
trips -- I did give up drinking --
time, sure, and yes,
I'd like to see
my grandchildren,
if there are any.
I'd like to see my books
but more has never
been good for me anyway.
Enough -- that's what I've
always needed to learn,
and is there a better way?
So this laughter
I had to work up to
through so many tears,
it just keeps coming
like a fountain, a spray.
Let it light on you
refreshment, benediction,
as I'm driven away.

--Susan Deborah King

Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet

At this height, Kansas
is just a concept,
a checkerboard design of wheat and corn

no larger than the foldout section
of my neighbor's travel magazine.
At this stage of the journey

I would estimate the distance
between myself and my own feelings
is roughly the same as the mileage

from Seattle to New York,
so I can lean back into the upholstered interval
between Muzak and lunch,

a little bored, a little old and strange.
I remember, as a dreamy
backyard kind of kid,

tilting up my head to watch
those planes engrave the sky
in lines so steady and so straight

they implied the enormous concentration
of good men,
but now my eyes flicker

from the in-flight movie
to the stewardess's pantyline,
then back into my book,

where men throw harpoons at something
much bigger and probably
better than themselves,

wanting to kill it, wanting
to see great clouds of blood erupt
to prove that they exist.

Imagine being born and growing up,
rushing through the world for sixty years
at unimaginable speeds.

Imagine a century like a room so large,
a corridor so long
you could travel for a lifetime

and never find the door,
until you had forgotten
that such a thing as doors exist.

Better to be on board the Pequod,
with a mad one-legged captain
living for revenge.

Better to feel the salt wind
spitting in your face,
to hold your sharpened weapon high,

to see the glisten
of the beast beneath the waves.
What a relief it would be

to hear someone in the crew
cry out like a gull,
Oh Captain, Captain!
Where are we going now?

© Tony Hoagland

Where I'm From

Following is an email I got at work yesterday and my results:

Hi all,

In honor of April, which is Poetry Month, this week's poem will be slightly different. This week I offer you a simple activity--a series of questions you answer that will result in your own poem. Now, before you think...uh oh...and delete this message, read on. I want to encourage you to use this activity with other staff, instructors and students. For example, Brattleboro staff is encouraging a diverse group of instructors to try the activity in their classes. And Burlington is posting the questions in the hallways on large sheets, so they can create a collaborative site-wide poem.

The activity is simple and the results are stunning. The activity is part of our SEI Instructor resources and our Top 40 Anthology of Assignments, but it has been done nation-wide with everyone from schoolchildren to senior citizens. It celebrates diversity--what makes each of us unique--while it builds a sense of community. It is quick, easy, and error-proof (You can't do it wrong!). And it is pure magic to see or hear these poems read aloud. Trust me.

Okay, so here's the activity, which is based on a poem by Georgia Ella Lyons, called "Where I'm From.” Simply answer the questions below with a statement that begins "I'm from..."

Where I'm From
What are 3-5 objects/elements found in your yard or some outdoor place you love to go?
I am from?
What are 3-5 things you would rush from your home in the case of a fire?
I am from?
What are the names of relatives, friends, teachers or others who link you to your past?
I am from?
What are the names of animals you've loved or love?
I am from?
What are a few sayings you remember from childhood?
I am from?
What are names of foods and dishes that recall family gatherings or childhood?
I am from?
What are books or songs or television/films you loved growing up?
I am from?
What are smells you associate with your family and extended family?
I am from?
What are a few things you learned to do or achieved on your own that you're proud of accomplishing?
I am from?
What are names of places you remember from childhood?
I am from?
What are childhood dreams you held? What did you want to be when you grew up?
I am from?
What are 3 items that represent your beliefs?
I am from?
What are 3 values you hold dear?
I am from?
What else communicates where you are from?
I am from?

Okay, here is the original poem by Georgia Ella Lyons.

Where I'm From
by George Ella Lyons

I am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
I am from the dirt under the black porch.
(Black, glistening
it tasted like beets.)
I am from the forsythia bush,
the Dutch elm
whose long gone limbs I remember
as if they were my own.
I'm from fudge and eyeglasses,
from Imogene and Alafair.
I'm from the know-it-alls
and the pass-it-ons,
from perk up and pipe down.
I'm from He restoreth my soul
with a cottonball lamb
and ten verses I can say myself.
I'm from Artemus and Billie's Branch,
fried corn and strong coffee.
From the finger my grandfather lost
to the auger
the eye my father shut to keep his sight.
Under my bed was a dress box
spilling old pictures,
a sift of lost faces
to drift beneath my dreams.
I am from those moments-
snapped before I budded-
leaf-fall from the family tree.

And now my contribution:

I am from sun puddles on the canyon red rocks, mesas, goat heads.

I am from my daughter, my photos, my hard drive.

I am from Autumn, Nanny and her soft, soft skin, Shirley, Harry, Mere Claire and Peter.

I am from Ivy, Luca Pumpkin Head, Sam I & II, Watson.

I am from “the moon and back and over the rainbow and back again,” from “stop crying before I give you something to cry about,” from “we’re moving…again.”

I am from mudbugs, gumbo, hushpuppies, Shirley’s sweet tea, jambalaya and fragrant pink shrimp.

I am from Just Me, Rainbow Connection, Good Night Moon, The Rainbow Goblins, Queen, Carole King and Joni Mitchell.

I am from cayenne, lightening, the dank musk of the swamp, incense and patchouli.

I am from surviving, mothering, math, yarn.

I am from Slidell, Salt Lake, Moab, Picayune, Mesa, Long Beach, Champlain, Burlington and points in between.

I am from flying, falling and teaching.

I am from Venus, Jupiter, blood.

I am from patience, honesty and love.

I am from Luna and circle, womyn and power.

Things

On mondays a woman at work sends out a poem to the entire college. The one this week particularly struck me and I thought I'd share it here.

Hi everyone,

In general, as Americans, we tend to like things. Our stores are filled to the brim, shelves over-flowing with color and variety. Our homes are sometimes so stuffed with objects, we rent space elsewhere to hold it all. However, if you ask people fleeing a storm or fire what they most want to take with them, it is usually the rare thing, something not purchased but passed from person to person--photos, a grandmother's ring, a father's hammer, a child's drawing. And it is not until we lose everything, we sometimes realize the true value of what we have.

This week I offer you a poem about things by Lisel Mueller, who moved to America at the age of 15 when her father was forced to flee the Nazis. Mueller wrote some poetry in college in her second language, English, but it wasn't until she was 29 and lost her mother (who was only 54 when she died) that Mueller really began writing poems. "Once that was unlocked, that need, I knew that that was what I had to do the rest of my life," she said in a 1997 interview (upon receiving the Pulitzer). Hope you enjoy the poem and have a great week!

Things

What happened is, we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock a face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
which will never suffer fatigue.

We fitted our shoes with tongues
as smooth as our own
and hung tongues inside bells
so we could listen
to their emotional language,

and because we loved graceful profiles
the pitcher received a lip,
the bottle a long, slender neck.

Even what was beyond us
was recast in our image;
we gave the country a heart,
the storm an eye,
the cave a mouth
so we could pass into safety.

--Lisel Mueller