A Jar of Honey

Elena Katsyura

A Jar of Honey

You hold it like a lit bulb,

a pound of light,

and swivel the stunned glow

around the fat glass sides:

it's the sun, all flesh and no bones

but for the floating knuckle

of honeycomb

attesting to the nature of the struggle.

Jacob Polley

I think we’ve probably all held a jar of honey up to the sunlight to admire it.  It’s not just the amber old-gold colour of it, it’s the viscosity, the slow-full knowledge of its sweetness.  In literature, honey is a symbol for delight, and seeing or tasting it, there’s no question why. And Polley  - I admire his work here  – “a lit bulb”, “the stunned glow”, “the sun” , it’s all light. And the incandescent glow, the radiating delight - what is it the product of? Struggle.

 

The Road and the End

Unknown

The Road and the End

I shall foot it

Down the roadway in the dusk,

Where shapes of hunger wander

And the fugitives of pain go by.

I shall foot it

In the silence of the morning,

See the night slur into dawn,

Hear the slow great winds arise

Where tall trees flank the way

And shoulder toward the sky.

The broken boulders by the road

Shall not commemorate my ruin.

Regret shall be the gravel under foot.

I shall watch for

Slim birds swift of wing

That go where wind and ranks of thunder

Drive the wild processionals of rain.

The dust of the traveled road

Shall touch my hands and face.

Carl Sandburg
  
 I've had this poem tucked away in my binders for so many years, and it has only gained strength in that time. It grips me even more today. I love the resolve within the "I shalls". And those lines, "The broken boulders by the road/Shall not commemorate my ruin./Regret shall be the gravel underfoot." This particular theme of facing what needs to be faced, determined to go on in spite of difficulty and pain is one of my favorites ("The Seafarer", Ezra Pound, "The Conflict", C.Day-Lewis, "Like Barley Bending", Sara Teasdale, "The Layers", Stanley Kunitz, "Thalassa", Louis MacNeice, etc.). Sandburg makes every word feel inevitable, meant to be. It takes conviction to carry that off. I paired his poem with the image of the old woman because I hope I will be able to read this when I am old and feel the same resolve, still. 

Thalassa

Eric Slate, "The Waterwitch"

Thalassa

Put out to sea, my broken comrades
Let the old seaweed crack, the surge
Burgeon, oblivious of the last
Embarkation of feckless men
Let every adverse force converge
Here we must needs embark again.

Run up the sail, my heartsick comrades,
Let each horizon tilt and lurch.
You know the worst, your wills are fickle
Your values blurred, your hearts impure
And your past lives a ruined church
But let your poison be your cure.

Put out to sea, ignoble comrades,
Whose records shall be noble yet
Butting through scarps of moving marble
The narwhal dares us to be free
By a high star our course is set
Our end is life. Put out to sea.

Louis MacNeice 


"Let every adverse force converge/Here we must needs embark again." In one way, this poem is grim - things are against us, we are not what we should be, and we are heartsick...BUT, let's put out to sea, let's go, let's aim for something better. And that last line, that last line gets me - "Our end is life. Put out to sea." Can it be said better?