The New Criterion published George Green’s poem, “Rose Poe.” I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s a vignette perhaps. Here’s the open:
Rose Poe was homeless after Richmond fell,
abandoned by the millionaire MacKenzies,
whose ward she’d been for over fifty years.
She spent her days down at the railroad depot
trying to sell some faded photographs
of her unhappy brother, Edgar Allan,
now long deceased, the author of “The Raven.”
…
I awoke in the Midsummer not to call night, in the white and the walk of the morning:
The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a finger-nail held to the candle,
Or paring of paradisaical fruit, lovely in waning but lustreless,
Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, of dark Maenefa the mountain;
A cusp still clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him, entangled him, not quite utterly.
This was the prized, the desirable sight, unsought, presented so easily,
Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, eyelid and eyelid of slumber.
“Moonrise” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
O beautiful for heroes prov’d
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life.
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev’ry gain divine.
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassion’d stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness.
America! America!
God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.
I took this photo on Saturday during the 1809s Day parade through Ringgold, Georgia.
It was not death, for I stood up,
And all the dead lie down.
It was not night, for all the bells
Put out their tongues for noon.
It was not frost, for on my flesh
I felt siroccos crawl,
Nor fire, for just my marble feet
Could keep a chancel cool.
And yet it tasted like them all,
The figures I have seen
Set orderly for burial
Reminded me of mine,
As if my life were shaven
And fitted to a frame
And could not breathe without a key,
And ’twas like midnight, some,
When everything that ticked has stopped
And space stares all around,
Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,
Repeal the beating ground;
But most like chaos, stopless, cool,
Without a chance, or spar,
Or even a report of land
To justify despair.
Emily Dickinson’s “It Was Not Death”, first published in 1891.
Some beautiful poetry by Kay Ryan, our current national poet laureate. Cicadas, loquat leaves, breeze, renewal. I love it.
A designer has worked up a typography video of Carl Sandburg’s poem, “Chicago.” There’s a small promo at the beginning.
Free Fall from ProlifikFilms on Vimeo.
I saw this performance of Greg Ferguson’s poem, “Free Fall.” It’s beautiful and chilling, being it is the story of Genesis 3. Scott Erickson and Sharon Irving are the two performers.
Here’s a brief poem on the Welsh word, Hiraeth, which is a longing for the past or homesickness. “As loneliness slips in beside …”
Also look over at Pamela Petro’s beautiful thoughts on this word, Deep Longing for Home, Hiraeth.
Author Daniel Handler writes about reading and loving poetry.
If you were to walk into my living room on some weekend night, that would be creepy. But before I stood up alarmed and demanded to know what you were doing there, you would see me in a big black leather chair that, I’ve been told, is too big for the room. I’d be all dressed up, and reading poetry.
The Nativity, by Federico Barocci, c. 1597
By: G. K. Chesterton
There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.
For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.
A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost – how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.
This world is wild as an old wives’ tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.
To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.