spot of poetry
As a recent
fflo entry reminded me, I liked a lot of these, especially the Li-Young Lee poem.... at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/17/AR2008041704466.html. Later edit: I had to go to the original paper-printed Book World to get the stanza breaks right though. The online version didn't show them, and also is (arggh) double spaced.
To Hold
So we're dust. In the meantime, my wife and I
make the bed. Holding opposite edges of the sheet,
we raise it, billowing, then pull it tight,
measuring by eye as it falls into alignment
between us. We tug, fold, tuck. And if I'm lucky,
she'll remember a recent dream and tell me.
One day we'll lie down and not get up.
One day, all we guard will be surrendered.
Until then, we'll go on learning to recognize
what we love, and what it takes
to tend what isn't for our having.
So often, fear has led me
to abandon what I know I must relinquish
in time. But for the moment,
I'll listen to her dream,
and she to mine, our mutual hearing calling
more and more detail into the light
of a joint and fragile keeping.
Li-Young Lee
from Behind My Eyes (Norton, $24.95)
fflo entry reminded me, I liked a lot of these, especially the Li-Young Lee poem.... at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/17/AR2008041704466.html. Later edit: I had to go to the original paper-printed Book World to get the stanza breaks right though. The online version didn't show them, and also is (arggh) double spaced.
To Hold
So we're dust. In the meantime, my wife and I
make the bed. Holding opposite edges of the sheet,
we raise it, billowing, then pull it tight,
measuring by eye as it falls into alignment
between us. We tug, fold, tuck. And if I'm lucky,
she'll remember a recent dream and tell me.
One day we'll lie down and not get up.
One day, all we guard will be surrendered.
Until then, we'll go on learning to recognize
what we love, and what it takes
to tend what isn't for our having.
So often, fear has led me
to abandon what I know I must relinquish
in time. But for the moment,
I'll listen to her dream,
and she to mine, our mutual hearing calling
more and more detail into the light
of a joint and fragile keeping.
Li-Young Lee
from Behind My Eyes (Norton, $24.95)