monday poem #5: Naomi Shihab Nye, "Bright Needle Poked Through Dark Cloth"
Recently I've been re-reading the poetry chapbooks I own, trying to reassure myself that people do in fact purchase and read chapbooks (even if they are only people as strange and geeky as myself). One of my favorites is Naomi Shihab Nye's little book called Mint (State Street Press, 1991), a collection of paragraphs. Yes, paragraphs. As Nye says in her Author's Note:
I think of these pieces as being simple paragraphs rather than "prose poems," though a few might sneak into the prose poem category, were they traveling on their own. The paragraph, standing by itself, has a lovely pocket-sized quality. It garnishes the page, as mint garnishes a plate. Many people say (foolishly, of course) they "don't like poetry" but I've never heard anyone say they don't like paragraphs. It would be like disliking 5 minute increments on the clock.
Some of these "paragraphs" are really several, and some are quite long, but most are indeed pocket-sized. And lovely. I've chosen the one that ends the book, which is also the shortest one, because I'm interested in endings at the moment.
Bright Needle Poked Through Dark Cloth
Light arriving in villages, lifting stone, opening shadows, a girl finds a circle of light on her hand. Even the broom in its corner, soles of shoes jumbled on the doorstep, a book left open till it blinks inside a film of dust - without morning did not belong to one another. Did not remember how they were invented or touched.
- Naomi Shihab Nye
from Mint