Here's Howe

This poem is very effective in reminding me that life is about today, not those events we look forward to in the future. The outstandingly beautiful experiences and the profound challenges provide a break  in the routine, but to recognize the value of the ordinary,which we experience day in and day out, is the way to get the most out of life. As the Buddhists say, all you really have is the here and now.

Marie Howe was interviewed on Krista Tippet's show On Being. here is the link. I really enjoyed listening to it. click here watch or listen. On Being with Marie Howe





The Gate
Marie Howe

I had no idea that the gate I would step through
to finally enter this world
would be the space my brother’s body made. He was
a little taller than me: a young man
but grown, himself by then,
done at twenty-eight, having folded every sheet,
rinsed every glass he would ever rinse under the cold
and running water.
This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.
And I’d say, What?
And he’d say, This—holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.
And I’d say, What?
And he’d say, This, sort of looking around.

from What the Living Do Copyright © 1998 by Marie Howe
  
And here is her poem about the power of words. I have experienced words changing my life, in particular, words of poetry.




The Meadow

As we walk into words that have waited for us to enter them, so
the meadow, muddy with dreams, is gathering itself together

and trying, with difficulty, to remember how to make wildflowers.
Imperceptibly heaving with the old impatience, it knows

for certain that two horses walk upon it, weary of hay.
The horses, sway-backed and self important, cannot design

how the small white pony mysteriously escapes the fence every day.
This is the miracle just beyond their heavy-headed grasp,

and they turn from his nuzzling with irritation. Everything
is crying out. Two crows, rising from the hill, fight

and caw-cry in mid-flight, then fall and light on the meadow grass
bewildered by their weight. A dozen wasps drone, tiny prop planes,

sputtering into a field the farmer has not yet plowed,
and what I thought was a phone, turned down and ringing,

is the knock of a woodpecker for food or warning, I can’t say.
I want to add my cry to those who would speak for the sound alone.

But in this world, where something is always listening, even
murmuring has meaning, as in the next room you moan

in your sleep, turning into late morning. My love, this might be
all we know of forgiveness, this small time when you can forget

what you are. There will come a day when the meadow will think
suddenly, water, root, blossom, through no fault of its own,
and the horses will lie down in daisies and clover. Bedeviled,
human, your plight, in waking, is to choose from the words

that even now sleep on your tongue, and to know that tangled
among them and terribly new is the sentence that could change your life.
from The Good Thief by Marie Howe. Copyright © 1999 by Marie Howe.
http://www.onbeing.org/program/feature/the-meadow-by-marie-howe/5341
 

The Joy of Writing

The Joy of Writing

Wislawya Szymborska

Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
For a drink of written water from a spring
whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?
Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?
Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,
she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.
Silence - this word also rustles across the page
and parts the boughs
that have sprouted from the word "woods."

Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
are letters up to no good,
clutches of clauses so subordinate
they'll never let her get away.

Each drop of ink contains a fair supply
of hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights,
prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment,
surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns.

They forget that what's here isn't life.
Other laws, black on white, obtain.
The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say,
and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities,
full of bullets stopped in mid-flight.
Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so.
Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall,
not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof's full stop.

Is there then a world
where I rule absolutely on fate?
A time I bind with chains of signs?
An existence become endless at my bidding?

The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.

 

These poets are so clever in describing the writing process. Each makes writing seem like it has a life of its own with unlimited potential. As I read more poetry I am reminded over and over that writers are first thinkers with something to say. Additionally they have the gift of knowing how to say it.

Bait Goat

Kay Ryan

There is a

distance where

magnets pull,

we feel, having

held them   

back. Likewise

there is a

distance where

words attract.

Set one out

like a bait goat   

and wait and   

seven others

will approach.

But watch out:

roving packs can

pull your word

away. You   

find your stake   

yanked and some   

rough bunch

to thank.

Here's what I mean about writers being thinkers. Watch this video of Kay Ryan you can see the gears turning in her thought processes. She is hysterical, but always making important connections.
When this video ends you will have the option to watch parts 2,3, and 4 which I highly recommend.  Much more entertaining than anything on tv.