finding solace in poetry

i've been looking for solace in the face of the political climate. it hasn't been easy to find. but there are bright spots here and there. and one of them is the poetry of mary oliver. i've often said i'm not a poetry person, but these times call for beauty that's complex and deep and which speaks directly to a parched and wounded soul. and nothing does that like poetry. funny, i'm also not a morning person, but these two poems lauding the morning both spoke to me and soothed my soul. i even worked them into my art journal today. soul soothed. at least for the moment.

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety -
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light -
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

- Mary Oliver

Morning

Salt shining behind its glass cylinder.

Milk in a blue bowl. The yellow linoleum.

The cat stretching her black body from the pillow.

The way she makes her curvaceous response to the small, kind gesture.

Then laps the bowl clean.

Then wants to go out into the world

where she leaps lightly and for no apparent reason across the lawn,

then sits, perfectly still, in the grass.

I watch her a little while, thinking:

what more could I do with wild words?

I stand in the cold kitchen, bowing down to her.

I stand in the cold kitchen, everything wonderful around me.

- Mary Oliver

signs of spring

sunny yellow.
small water droplets.
bright green to combat the grey.
signs of hope after a long, dark winter.
relentless winds blow,
belying the impending spring.

...or perhaps bringing it.

* * *

i know, i know, i'm all lego all the time. but i can't help it. the lego movie held onto the top spot at the box office for the third straight week. and these behind the scenes featurettes are so clever, i had to share this one.

i'll leave you with the film's earworm - everything is awesome.
just try to be in a bad mood after you hear this song.
i dare you.

here's hoping that everything is awesome in the week ahead. for you and for me.

roads taken and not

The Road Not Taken

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 marked 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.

--Robert Frost

i know i've often protested that i'm not a poetry person, but as i contemplate roads, this speaks to me. sometimes you rejoin a road you took before and find it improved. at least that's what i'm hoping.

happy weekend.

feeling a little dorothy on a cold and rainy day

four be the things i am wiser to know:

idleness, sorrow, a friend and a foe.

four be the things i'd be better without:

love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.

three be the things i shall never attain:

envy, content and sufficient champagne.

three be the things i shall have till i die:

laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.

dorothy parker

ode to (un)common things

fish by resurrection fern, bowl by artemisartemis, ring from here.

felted stone by me (with fibers from artemis artemis)

i've been struggling to write a post on my all-time favorite, couldn't-do-without-it ingredient over on domestic sensualist. i've been struggling because it's hard to narrow to just one ingredient - is it cream or onion or garlic or olive oil or bacon or...you get the idea. and i'm still not there yet (bee's going to go first), but in my quest to break through, i turned to poetry. yes. me. poetry. weird, huh? since i always protest that i'm not a poetry person. except for a bit of cavafy, the odd alexander blok and teeny bit of  akhmatova and mandelstam, poetry just doesn't speak to me. but then i remembered neruda. and the beautiful edition i have of his odes to common things with beautiful pen and ink illustrations by ferris cook. so, in light of yesterday's post on the simple things and reading all of the other beautiful posts about simple things around the blogosphere, i just had to share neruda's ode to things with all of you. in case you hadn't seen it. and since i don't speak spanish, i'm sharing it in english translation, tho' my edition has both.

ode to things


I have a crazy,
crazy love of things.
I like pliers,
and scissors.
I love
cups,
rings,
and bowls -
not to speak, or course,
of hats.
I love
all things,
not just
the grandest,
also
the
infinite-
ly
small -
thimbles,
spurs,
plates,
and flower vases.

Oh yes,
the planet
is sublime!
It's full of pipes
weaving
hand-held
through tobacco smoke,
and keys
and salt shakers -
everything,
I mean,
that is made
by the hand of man, every little thing:
shapely shoes,
and fabric,
and each new
bloodless birth
of gold,
eyeglasses
carpenter's nails,
brushes,
clocks, compasses,
coins, and the so-soft
softness of chairs.

Mankind has
built
oh so many
perfect
things!
Built them of wool
and of wood,
of glass and
of rope:
remarkable
tables,
ships, and stairways.
I love
all
things,
not because they are
passionate
or sweet-smelling
but because,
I don't know,
because
this ocean is yours,
and mine;
these buttons
and wheels
and little
forgotten
treasures,
fans upon
whose feathers
love has scattered
its blossoms
glasses, knives and
scissors -
all bear
the trace
of someone's fingers
on their handle or surface,
the trace of a distant hand
lost
in the depths of forgetfulness.

I pause in houses,
streets and
elevators
touching things,
identifying objects
that I secretly covet;
this one because it rings,
that one because
it's as soft
as the softness of a woman's hip,
that one there for its deep-sea color,
and that one for its velvet feel.

O irrevocable
river
of things:
no one can say
that I loved
only
fish,
or the plants of the jungle and the field,
that I loved
only
those things that leap and climb, desire, and survive.
It's not true:
many things conspired
to tell me the whole story.
Not only did they touch me,
or my hand touched them:
they were
so close
that they were a part
of my being,
they were so alive with me
that they lived half my life
and will die half my death.

antique locks from the middle east

it seems that no matter how much i try to convince myself otherwise, i really do love things. things of all kinds, but especially old things. or things that are nice to touch. or unusual things. things that have a story to tell. i just can't help myself.