The Otter

Martine Emdur

The Otter

When you plunged

The light of Tuscany wavered

And swung through the pool

From top to bottom.

I loved your wet head and smashing crawl,

Your fine swimmer's back and shoulders

Surfacing and surfacing again

This year and every year since.

I sat dry-throated on the warm stones.

You were beyond me.

The mellowed clarities, the grape-deep air

Thinned and disappointed.

Thank God for the slow loadening,

When I hold you now

We are close and deep

As the atmosphere on water.

My two hands are plumbed water.

You are my palpable, lithe

Otter of memory

In the pool of the moment,

Turning to swim on your back,

Each silent, thigh-shaking kick

Re-tilting the light,

Heaving the cool at your neck.

And suddenly you're out,

Back again, intent as ever,

Heavy and frisky in your freshened pelt,

Printing the stones. 

Seamus Heaney 

I live this poem every time I take my son to the pool. He is so happy in the water, watching him jump off the diving board, pick objects up off the bottom of the pool with his teeth, and wave to me underwater - its sheer joy. Seeing him so comfortable and playful in an element that for me is not so easy - he too is beyond me.

The Midnight Skaters

Ronald Lampitt. Skating by Moonlight

The Midnight Skaters

The hop-poles stand in cones,

     The icy pond lurks under,

The pole-tops steeple to the thrones

     Of stars, sound gulfs of wonder;

But not the tallest there, 'tis said,

Could fathom to this pond's black bed.

Then is not death at watch

     Within those secret waters?

What wants he but to catch

     Earth's heedless sons and daughters?

With but a crystal parapet

Between, he has his engines set.

Then on, blood shouts, on, on,

     Twirl, wheel and whip above him,

Dance on this ball-floor thin and wan,

     Use him as though you love him;

Court him, elude him, reel and pass,

And let him hate you through the glass.

Edmund Blunden

I appreciate (in a strange way) this reminder of just how close death is. That the people in this poem are dancing and sweeping and swirling on the thinnest of barriers is so true, so real. Anyone who has lived a little will have felt that breathstopping proximity. In the poem Death's presence is a sinister contrast to the mood above the ice. But the poet is not cowed.  "Use him as though you love him." That line is intriguing. What does "using death" look like? I have to think about that. 

La Trentiesme De Mon Eage

Carolyn Pyfrom, "Now We See Through a Glass Darkly"

La Trentiesme De Mon Eage

And I have come upon this place

By lost ways, by a nod, by words,

By faces, by an old man's face

At Morlaix lifted to the birds,

By hands upon the tablecloth

At Aldebori's, by the thin

Child's hands that opened to the moth

And let the flutter of the moonlight in,

By hands, by voices, by the voice

Of Mrs. Whitman on the stair,

By Margaret's 'If we had the choice

To choose or not - 'through her thick hair,

By voices, by the creak and fall

Of footsteps on the upper floor,

By silence waiting in the hall

Between the doorbell and the door,

By words, by voices, a lost way - ,

And here above the chimney stack

The unknown constellations sway -

And by what way shall I go back? 

Archibald Macleish

I wrote this poem down so many years ago, read and re-read it, and only today did I bother to find out what the title means. (Something to the effect of "the thirtieth year of my life".) Which is interesting, because it gives it a slightly different slant than what I had in mind all this time. I was thinking more of all the tiny details that lead us along, the seemingly random choices and conversations overheard, or by things not heard and not known - all these bringing us to the person, place and moment we are now in. But today, I found out what the title means, and it adds an element of inner reflection to the outward circumstances. I puzzled and puzzled over what image to pair the poem with, and ended up with yet another self-portrait, this time reflected in a mirror. 

December Notes

Emily Burningham

December Notes

 The backyard is one white sheet

Where we read in the bird tracks

The songs we hear. Delicate

Sparrow, heavier cardinal,

Filigree threads of chickadee.

And wing patterns where one flew

Low, then up and away, gone

To the woods but calling out

Clearly its bright epigrams.

More snow promised for tonight.

The postal van is stalled

In the road again, the mail

Will be late and any good news

Will reach us by hand.

Nancy McCleery

The idea of reading the news on the snow just makes me smile. The natural world is sending us messages, leaving notes, and clues - I love how McCleery puts human news/mail right in with the rest. Its true. We are receiving communications from all creatures and beings around us, not just the humans.

Hedges

Nicholas Hely Hutchinson 

Hedges Freaked With Snow

No argument, no anger, no remorse,
No dividing of blame.
There was poison in the cup - why should we ask
From whose hand it came?

No grief for our dead love, no howling gales
That through darkness blow,
But the smile of sorrow, a wan winter landscape,
Hedges freaked with snow.

Robert Graves

I don't know what this poem means. Acceptance without question? A blankness, an emptiness that comes from too much having happened, too much to process?  It makes me think a little of T.S. Eliot's line "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper." What I love is how Grave's translates the physical landscape into his inner landscape, and that "hedges freaked with snow" is brilliant.

Lake Harvest

Holly Meade

Lake Harvest

Down on the flat of the lake

Out on the slate and the green,

Spotting the border of Erie's sleeping robe of silver-blue changeable silk,

In sight of the shimmer of silver-blue changeable silk,

In the sun,

The men are sawing the frosted crystal.

Patient the horses look on from their sleighs,

Patient the trees, down from the bank, darkly ignoring the sun.

Each saw sings and whines in a grey-mittened hand,

And diamonds and pieces of a hundred rainbows are strewn around.

Raymond Knister

Absolutely beautiful description. Real life is poetry when translated by someone like Knister. Poets have my respect for this reason - we need help to see beauty - sometimes poems are our only alchemy.

The Frost Spirit

Photo by Jan_ice on Flickr

                 

The Frost Spirit

He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes, you may trace his footsteps now, On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the brown hill’s withered brow. He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees where their pleasant green came forth, And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, have shaken them down to earth. He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes! from the frozen Labrador, From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which the white bear wanders o’er, Where the fisherman’s sail is stiff with ice, and the luckless forms below In the sunless cold of the lingering night into marble statues grow He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes on the rushing Northern blast, And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his fearful breath went past. With an unscorched wing he has hurried on, where the fires of Hecla glow On the darkly beautiful sky above and the ancient ice below. He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes and the quiet lake shall feel The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to the skater’s heel; And the streams which danced on the broken rocks, or sang to the leaning grass, Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in mournful silence pass. He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes! Let us meet him as we may, And turn with the light of the parlor-fire his evil power away; And gather closer the circle round, when that fire-light dances high, And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend as his sounding wing goes by!

John Greenleaf Whittier

Its the first of December, and we need some poetry to warm us. Here's a poem I would like to memorize.It's got great rhythm to it, almost reminding me of Robert Service's poems - "The Cremation of Sam McGee" or something like. Anyway, I love the personification of Frost/Winter. Old-fashioned and charming.