v day
I don't usually do Valentine's Day except apparently today I do. I was looking through my poetry bookmarks to find a poem to send a friend who sent me one of those Valentine's pics with the adorable fluffy animal and a heart on it, but I rejected everything as too sappy or too intimate or too angsty - so I'm in the market for a poem which is basically a cute fluffy animal. Until then, this is a poem that was posted in greatpoets very recently, like in the last week, but I'm exercising my ability to copypasta because I think it's kind of great and also if I was going to write a Valentine's to my entire flist, it would say two things: 1. you are great, yes YOU and 2. The last two stanzas of this poem.
Shoulders
A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south:
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.
No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.
This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo
but he's not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.
His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy's dream
deep inside him.
We're not going to be able
to live in this world
if we're not willing to do what he's doing
with one another.
The road will only ever be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.
- Naomi Sihab Nye
Also, here is something for V-Day, Vagina Day, Victory Day.
Myth
Long afterward, Oedipus, old and blinded, walked the
roads. He smelled a familiar smell. It was
the Sphinx. Oedipus said, "I want to ask one question.
Why didn't I recognize my mother?" "You gave the
wrong answer," said the Sphinx. "But that was what
made everything possible," said Oedipus. "No," she said.
"When I asked, What walks on four legs in the morning,
two at noon, and three in the evening, you answered,
Man. You didn't say anything about woman."
"When you say Man," said Oedipus, "you include women
too. Everyone knows that." She said, "That's what
you think."
-- Muriel Rukeyser
Shoulders
A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south:
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.
No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.
This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo
but he's not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.
His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy's dream
deep inside him.
We're not going to be able
to live in this world
if we're not willing to do what he's doing
with one another.
The road will only ever be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.
- Naomi Sihab Nye
Also, here is something for V-Day, Vagina Day, Victory Day.
Myth
Long afterward, Oedipus, old and blinded, walked the
roads. He smelled a familiar smell. It was
the Sphinx. Oedipus said, "I want to ask one question.
Why didn't I recognize my mother?" "You gave the
wrong answer," said the Sphinx. "But that was what
made everything possible," said Oedipus. "No," she said.
"When I asked, What walks on four legs in the morning,
two at noon, and three in the evening, you answered,
Man. You didn't say anything about woman."
"When you say Man," said Oedipus, "you include women
too. Everyone knows that." She said, "That's what
you think."
-- Muriel Rukeyser