One life, or the faring stars
April has slipped away too fast. Work has been busy, and I've been busy outside of it. My adventuring has been curbed somewhat by extremely persistent plantar fasciitis in one foot, which I finally contacted a recommended doctor about, only to be told that they don't do feet. Sigh.
Anyway, I have not forgotten it is Poetry Month (for the next few minutes). Through a string of coincidences involving a remaindered box of postcards and Emily Dickinson, I've been reading Muriel Rukeyser, who won the Yale Younger Poets prize in 1935. I find her often incoherent, but I like some of her phrasing very much. The following is pure Wellesley benediction; I read it and find myself back in the chapel squashed between my friends on an uncomfortable bench. The choir has just finished, or possibly the group that did Indigo Girls songs, and we are all of us being encouraged by somebody with a PhD and a gown:
“This Place in the Ways”
Having come to this place
I set out once again
on the dark and marvelous way
from where I began:
belief in the love of the world,
woman, spirit, and man.
Having failed in all things
I enter a new age
seeing the old ways as toys,
the houses of a stage
painted and long forgot;
and I find love and rage.
Rage for the world as it is
but for what it may be
more love now than last year
and always less self-pity
since I know in a clearer light
the strength of the mystery.
And at this place in the ways
I wait for song.
My poem-hand still, on the paper,
all night long.
Poems in throat and hand, asleep,
and my storm beating strong!
(Muriel Rukeyser, The Green Wave, 1948, p. 21)
Anyway, I have not forgotten it is Poetry Month (for the next few minutes). Through a string of coincidences involving a remaindered box of postcards and Emily Dickinson, I've been reading Muriel Rukeyser, who won the Yale Younger Poets prize in 1935. I find her often incoherent, but I like some of her phrasing very much. The following is pure Wellesley benediction; I read it and find myself back in the chapel squashed between my friends on an uncomfortable bench. The choir has just finished, or possibly the group that did Indigo Girls songs, and we are all of us being encouraged by somebody with a PhD and a gown:
“This Place in the Ways”
Having come to this place
I set out once again
on the dark and marvelous way
from where I began:
belief in the love of the world,
woman, spirit, and man.
Having failed in all things
I enter a new age
seeing the old ways as toys,
the houses of a stage
painted and long forgot;
and I find love and rage.
Rage for the world as it is
but for what it may be
more love now than last year
and always less self-pity
since I know in a clearer light
the strength of the mystery.
And at this place in the ways
I wait for song.
My poem-hand still, on the paper,
all night long.
Poems in throat and hand, asleep,
and my storm beating strong!
(Muriel Rukeyser, The Green Wave, 1948, p. 21)