Tuesday, May 21, 2013

I need to learn this one "by heart"

David Lose's blog, again.
A week or so ago I listened to John Lithgow's Poetry for the Whole Family audio book.  It was great.  I should go find some of those poems and put them here.
But today   - - -
The Land of Beginning Again
I wish that there were some wonderful place
In the Land of Beginning Again.
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches
And all of our poor selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door
and never put on again.
I wish we could come on it all unaware,
Like the hunter who finds a lost trail;
And I wish that the one whom our blindness had done
The greatest injustice of all
Could be there at the gates
like an old friend that waits
For the comrade he’s gladdest to hail.
We would find all the things we intended to do
But forgot, and remembered too late,
Little praises unspoken, little promises broken,
And all the thousand and one
Little duties neglected that might have perfected
The day for one less fortunate.
It wouldn’t be possible not to be kind
In the Land of Beginning Again,
And the ones we misjudged
and the ones whom we grudged
their moments of victory here,
Would find in the grasp of our loving hand-clasp
More than penitent lips could explain…
So I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches,
And all of our poor selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door
And never put on again.
By Louisa Fletcher, in The Land of Beginning Again.

David Lose says the Land of Beginning Again is heaven.  And the church should be a foretaste.
I really need to learn this poem by heart.
( Confession:  I am in danger (I think we all are?) of becoming one of what Moses and God, talking over a beer, called "these stiff necked people".)

Sunday, May 5, 2013

David Lose's blog is the source for another poem I don't want to forget.


Reply to the Question: “How can You Become a Poet?”
take the leaf of a tree
trace its exact shape
the outside edges
and inner lines
memorize the way it is fastened to the twig
(and how the twig arches from the branch)
how it springs forth in April
how it is panoplied in July
by late August
crumple it in your hand
so that you smell its end-of-summer sadness
chew its woody stem
listen to its autumn rattle
watch it as it atomizes in the November air
then in winter
when there is no leaf left
invent one
Eve Mirriam