The recent ice storm has reminded me of one of my all-time favorite poems...

Birches
by Robert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust--
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Truly an unbelievable poem which you can read and re-read throughout the years.

Whenever I read mw.hassles I am of course sympathetic to those who have had their lunch eaten from the refrigerator -- that's just harsh to find out someone ate your food; but, it also sometimes brings a smile to my face because I think of this poem I read so very long ago by WIlliam Carlos Williams ...

This is just to say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

by William Carlos Williams

I took a course a Modern Poetry in college and I have to say I didn't do that well; I just couldn't connect with modern poetry the way I could with regular poetry or english literature. But since then, I have come to like modern poetry a little more. I've read all sorts of critical analysis of this poem...it's about fallability, forgiveness, the human condition. Yeah, maybe.

But why I really like this poem is because it reminds me of when I ..once...metaphorically...ate the plums in the icebox. About 10 years ago...my mother...then 70+ years old...had a computer problem. This is the bain of my existence...relatives and neighbors know I work with computers and they continually thrust their computer problems on me -- mouse is broken, can't connect to AOL, printer is not working, etc... apparently they have it in their heads that I can ...and want to...fix all their computer problems. My mother, bless her soul, how I don't know, changed her monitor display to some invalid setting so that as soon as you turn the computer on I could hear it reboot...but the monitor was blank. Totally blank. She called me up to fix this.

I went over to her house dutifully, turned the computer on, saw the blank screen, and was perplexed. I did this a few more times...tried hitting F5 or F10 during the reboot...nothing...blank screen. I said Mom I can't fix this. She said it was important that I do so, she had to read a joke email that one of her retired friends sent her as well as get her daily horoscope and sudoko.

So I called my friend Rich. Rich is the wizard of all things Windows. I explained to Rich the situation and he said ...give me an hour. He called me back within an hour and gave me a step by step sequence of keystrokes....Windows button, up arrow 4 times, left arrow, left arrow, down arrow, return, return, ...this series of keystrokes was about 437 steps long...and I went over to my mother's house to give it a try. I couldn't believe it...but I did all 437 steps...in order, carefully....rebooted...and holy cow....the monitor was restored. The horoscope and sudoku crisis was averted.

My mother...to thank Rich...baked him an apple pie. And then she gave me the pie to give to Rich. When she handed me the pie, it was still warm. I love my mother's homemade apple pies, and when she gave it to me I was conflicted. This pie was for Rich. A small piece of the crust ...dry and flaky...fell off in my hand when I was putting the pie in the car. It was just a small loose piece of crust...and I didn't want it to dirty the car...so I thought it would be OK if I ate that one little piece of loose crust. I did, and it was good, dry and flaky like I thought. And 5 minutes later about 1/4 of the pie was gone. Mea culpa, mea culpa...

Rich and I are good friends, and I gave the pie to Rich, sans the missing 1/4, and we laughed and laughed about this. "Dude, I totally understand" he said...and I joined him for another slice.

So this is what I think of when I read that poem, or read mw.hassles....

Here's a small piece of poetry ....easy to read...but thought provoking...

This situation reminds me of many things...family, work, being a parent, etc...   The outcome of your actions is not always certain, sometimes the dove cannot be saved, sometimes you do not effect the desired result in the world.  This is out of your control.  What is in your control is how you act and carry yourself in these situations.

What is it that he did that was worthwhile?   Nothing really is different because of his actions.  The dove is dead, he did not save it.  I think what he did that was worthwhile was that he acted with sensistivity, compassion, and respect. 

Today's poem analysis is ....

 

Uphill
by Christina Rossetti

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.

 

 

The poem is a conversation between 2 people.  The 1st person asks a question on 1 line, and the 2nd person answers the question on the 2nd line.  This pattern of question and response holds for the entire poem.   The identity of these 2 people is probably the first part of understanding this poem.  The person asking the questions is the person the reader identifies with.  So the 1st person is "us".  The identity of the 2nd person is not so clear.  Perhaps someone more experienced.  Perhaps someone who has finished the journey already. 

In the first stanza, the "road" is the journey of life.  That the road "winds up-hill" are the struggles, suffering, trials, and strife that everyone endures. 

The second stanza starts in on the end of the road...the resting place.  Death?  Heaven?  Take your pick.  But you cannot miss this resting place.  It is unavoidable.

The third stanza talks about others at the inn..."those who have gone before." 

It is not that complicated a poem to understand.  For me it is the question and answer format that adds interest, as well as some of the wording and phrasing.   Take for instance the last stanza...."Shall I comfort?" ...the answer of "Of labour you shall find the sum." is interesting enough that I have re-read this at least a dozen times to try and understand the meaning.  The comfort you find is equal to the labour you have done?  The comfort of other's labour?   All in all, it is a rather comforting poem, as the person asking question is comforted, so is the reader.  "Yea, beds for all who come."

Today's poem, with analysis, is one by Walt Whitman ....

A NOISELESS PATIENT SPIDER
by Walt Whitman

A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to
xxxxxconnect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.


Well....easy to understand in some regards: the spider, oddly enough, is an analogy for the human soul...and the literary technique at work is one of imagery. The spider/human_soul  reaches out to make connections in the outside world.  The spider, and human soul...both noiseless, patient, seeking, trying to build connections.  It is the building of these connections, that construct, that is the endeavor.  Not an easy task.  Filament after filament launched into nothingness.  Until one finds a connection, takes hold, and then the web and construction can begin.

Relationships.  Work.   Other?

A poem by Emily Dickinson about the robin, a harbinger of spring....

 

 

THE ROBIN is the one

That interrupts the morn

With hurried, few, express reports

When March is scarcely on.

The robin is the one
        

That overflows the noon

With her cherubic quantity,

An April but begun.

The robin is the one

That speechless from her nest
        

Submits that home and certainty

And sanctity are best.

 

 

 

This poem reminds me of Robert Frost ....some simple observations of nature that cleverly lead to some bigger conclusion.   The verb phrases associated with the robin at the beginning of each stanza...."interrupts the morn", and "overflows the noon" ...interests me.   And the months mentioned....March and April...that is when we really notice the robin.   Nothing complicated; yet still interesting.

Bit of sleet last night, and when it accumulates on the trees it always reminds me of Robert Frost's poem...

 

 

 

Birches

Robert Frost (1874–1963)

WHEN I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay.

Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
        5

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain. They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells,
        10

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
        15

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
        20

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm

(Now am I free to be poetical?)

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
        25

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father’s trees

By riding them down over and over again
        30

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away
        35

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
        40

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It’s when I’m weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood
        45

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig’s having lashed across it open.

I’d like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.
        50

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:

I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.

I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
        55

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

TOWARD heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
        60

I find in my backpocket a page torn from the Boston Globe from perhaps a month or more ago.  I usually never read the obituaries, but I had time to kill and only a few sections of the Globe to read at this particular coffee shop.  I read the intriguing obituary of Dr. Dhristine Luthra, 55, poet, homepath, photographer.

 

A fascinating obituary, and just a glimpse at a fascinating person.  Just a few ssnippets:

• "Her work as a doctor, I think, was really a way of trying to be a loving ethical presence in the world"
• "One time I asked her why she became a doctor.  She said, 'Because I was interested in people.  I thought about philosphy and I thought about medicine and I thought I could help more people with medicine."

 

Two poems. 

 

Touch Your Face

If I were going to die

or you,

I would want to touch your face

with my eyes closed

the way the beautiful

blind child did

 

 

and,

 

Planting Ginger

I too, wish a hand would pull over me

a rich blanket of warm and loose earth

and give me a place of lovely darkness,

a place to sing very old melodies,

a place to cherish the lineage of life

Submitted by a friend, RK.....a Java programming haiku:

In the morning
The build is dead, or so it seems
Quite regularly

'War Thoughts at Home'

In this poem from 1918, Frost reflects on the fighting in Europe during World War I. At the direction of the Frost estate, only the first two stanzas appear here:

On the backside of the house
Where it wears no paint to the weather
And so shows most its age,
Suddenly blue jays rage
And flash in blue feather.
 
It is late in an afternoon
More grey with snow to fall
Than white with fallen snow
When it is blue jay and crow
Or no bird at all.

Interesting website of the poetry of Tupac... here's one....

Liberty Needs Glasses

excuse me but lady liberty needs glasses
and so does mrs justice by her side
both the broads r blind as bats
stumbling thru the system
justice bumbed into mutulu and
trippin on geronimo pratt
but stepped right over oliver
and his crooked partner ronnie
justice stubbed her big toe on mandela
and liberty was misquoted by the indians
slavery was a learning phase
forgotten with out a verdict
while justice is on a rampage
4 endangered surviving black males
i mean really if anyone really valued life
and cared about the masses
theyd take em both 2 pen optical
and get 2 pair of glasses

I got the idea to look at they lyrics of Tupac when I was looking at Yahoo Buzz! which mentioned that celebrities come and go, but Tupac has staying power. I don't listen to much rap, so I thought I'd try and find his lyrics online...and read some lyrics..and discovered he has some poetry as well. Very interesting reading, there was one piece on Vincent Van Gogh that had some fascinating insight. There's some good stuff.

The Worcester Magazine had an interview with a local poet named David Williams.

It was a semi-interesting interview, but left me wanting more.  How can you interview a poet without including a poem, or mentioning one of their works?  So I Google'd him and found what I was looking for.   There is an audio interview on Arab World which includes several author-read poems, as well as an audio interview.  

His earlier work is titled "Travelling Mercies", and here is one poem from that work ...

Seeds and Names

I like the metaphor of the many seeds of the cedar cone .... all different names of God...emanating from the same place.   And the image of the seeds carrying through the old man counting rosary beads, seeds of lentils going into the soup, and into the cooking pot. 

It ranges over the devastations of war, the fearless voice of Sir Francis Burdett, the iniquities of Castlereagh, the tyranny of Napoleon and the oppressions of colonial India. Rather than remaining focused on Finnerty and Ireland, Shelley is concerned with England and the war:

Millions to fight compell’d, to fight or die
In mangled heaps on War’s red altar lie . . .
When legal murders swell the lists of pride;
When glory’s views the titled idiot guide.
It is the “cold advisers of yet colder kings” who have “the power to breathe / O’er all the world the infectious blast of death”.

 

As I read the Times article, I am at first startled the historical context, Shelley's political activism in his poetry, as well as the governmental squelching of dissent.  As an English literature major, I knew this, but seem to have forgotten.

 

Ozymandis has been a favorite poem of mine.  Accessible.   And it is quick to reread his other poetry... poems of love, despair, oppression, politics.

 

Modern poetry has never really appealed to me.  But where and who are the Shelley's of today?  Anyone?

 

Risk
by Anais Nin

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.


An interesting poem by Anais Nin, more known for her tasteful erotic and highly personal writing.   There is the metaphor of the bud and flower...like a Georgia O'
Keefe painting...does not require too much to figure out this imagery....common in her writing.

What she describes is interesting...when it is appropriate from a balance of pain perspective ....to blossom....when the chance of winning and losing...compels one to a more risky position.

Mad Girl's Love Song

by Sylvia Plath

 

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

 

 

Let America Be America Again

by Langston Hughes

 

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?
Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

The Portrait

by Stanley Kunitz

 

My mother never forgave my father
for killing himself,
especially at such an awkward time
and in a public park,
that spring
when I was waiting to be born.
She locked his name
in her deepest cabinet
and would not let him out,
though I could hear him thumping.
When I came down from the attic
with the pastel portrait in my hand
of a long-lipped stranger
with a brave moustache
and deep brown level eyes,
she ripped it into shreds
without a single word
and slapped me hard.
In my sixty-fourth year
I can feel my cheek
still burning.

 

The Testing-Tree

by Stanley Kunitz

1

On my way home from school
up tribal Providence Hill
past the Academy ballpark
where I could never hope to play
I scuffed in the drainage ditch
among the sodden seethe of leaves
hunting for perfect stones
rolled out of glacial time
into my pitcher’s hand;
then sprinted lickety-
split on my magic Keds
from a crouching start,
scarcely touching the ground
with my flying skin
as I poured it on
for the prize of the mastery
over that stretch of road,
with no one no where to deny
when I flung myself down
that on the given course
I was the world’s fastest human.

2

Around the bend
that tried to loop me home
dawdling came natural
across a nettled field
riddled with rabbit-life
where the bees sank sugar-wells
in the trunks of the maples
and a stringy old lilac
more than two stories tall
blazing with mildew
remembered a door in the
long teeth of the woods.
All of it happened slow:
brushing the stickseed off,
wading through jewelweed
strangled by angel’s hair,
spotting the print of the deer
and the red fox’s scats.
Once I owned the key
to an umbrageous trail
thickened with mosses
where flickering presences
gave me right of passage
as I followed in the steps
of straight-backed Massassoit
soundlessly heel-and-toe
practicing my Indian walk.

3

Past the abandoned quarry
where the pale sun bobbed
in the sump of the granite,
past copperhead ledge,
where the ferns gave foothold,
I walked, deliberate,
on to the clearing,
with the stones in my pocket
changing to oracles
and my coiled ear tuned
to the slightest leaf-stir.
I had kept my appointment.
There I stood int he shadow,
at fifty measured paces,
of the inexhaustible oak,
tyrant and target,
Jehovah of acorns,
watchtower of the thunders,
that locked King Philip’s War
in its annulated core
under the cut of my name.
Father wherever you are
I have only three throws
bless my good right arm.
In the haze of afternoon,
while the air flowed saffron,
I played my game for keeps--
for love, for poetry,
and for eternal life--
after the trials of summer.

4

In the recurring dream
my mother stands
in her bridal gown
under the burning lilac,
with Bernard Shaw and Bertie
Russell kissing her hands;
the house behind her is in ruins;
she is wearing an owl’s face
and makes barking noises.
Her minatory finger points.
I pass through the cardboard doorway
askew in the field
and peer down a well
where an albino walrus huffs.
He has the gentlest eyes.
If the dirt keeps sifting in,
staining the water yellow,
why should I be blamed?
Never try to explain.
That single Model A
sputtering up the grade
unfurled a highway behind
where the tanks maneuver,
revolving their turrets.
In a murderous time
the heart breaks and breaks
and lives by breaking.
It is necessary to go
through dark and deeper dark
and not to turn.
I am looking for the trail.
Where is my testing-tree?
Give me back my stones!

In Just-

by e.e. cummings

 

in Just-
spring       when the world is mud-
luscious the little lame baloonman


whistles       far       and wee


and eddyandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring


when the world is puddle-wonderful


the queer
old baloonman whistles
far       and       wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing


from hop-scotch and jump-rope and


it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed


baloonMan       whistles
far
and
wee

 

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.