Mundane

Mundane, I am not convinced that you exist.
That all moments do not contain magical qualities
dormant until the alchemy of our brains,
that ancient power of humor and sight
turns you pure
smelts the meaning out of this drive home.

-Me, trying to elevate this morning's carpool



Ave Atque Vale

Even though I managed to swerve around the lump
of groundhog lying on its back on the road,
he traveled with me for miles,

a quiet passenger
who passed the time looking out the window
enjoying this new view of the woods

he once hobbled around in,
sleeping all day and foraging at night,
rising sometimes to consult the wind with his snout.

Last night he must have wandered
onto the road, hoping to slip
behind the curtain of soft ferns on the other side.

I see these forms every day
and always hope the next one up ahead
is a shredded tire, a discarded brown coat,

but there they are, assuming
every imaginable pose for death's portrait.
This one I speak of, for example,

the one who rode with me for miles,
reminded me of a small Roman citizen,
with his prosperous belly,

his faint smile,
and his one stiff forearm raised
as if he were still alive, still hailing Caesar.

-Billy Collins

Latin/ On Leaving the University

If I've learned anything in the past few months of blogging, it's that the public sphere can be a treacherous place for a tender little heart. And yet...
I had intended to share a clip of Billy Collins (2008 Poet Laureate) reading his poem Litany, but ended up, after three minutes of frantic typing, with this. It surprised me, too. Sometimes my brain communicates directly with my fingers and fails to check in with the shy editors in my frontal lobe.


"They say you've not truly arrived until your name is followed by a Latin phrase. No, they don't say that. I say that. But I don't mean it. I'm sure you can be very accomplished without being summa cum-laude or poet laureate. Without Greek symbols of your intelligence hanging in dipped gold around your neck. Without confusing people; are you a Free Mason? Greek Orthodox or something? Without the silly ceremonies where mothers and cheerleaders alike cross their hearts and swear to add their sweat beads of wisdom to the intimidatingly large pot. Where favorite professors in black robes knight you, press you into service. Convince you to ride shotgun and fight ignorance. And you ARE convinced. You see yourself moving amongst those time-worn halls till the End of Days. Smelling nothing but books and libraries and Fall, seeing tops of heads bowed down low at the sound of your lecturing voice. And bright eyes. You think of what chair you would put in your office and the eager girls who will sit there...a lifetime of sculpture and syllabi and research mixing with plants in your big-windowed house. But you take communion only half believing in your visions. And you could stay forever but you rise and walk out, your black robe billowing, your medals making hollow clanks at your neck. Those who have come to watch you, they only half believe too. And you can't make it real. The vision only goes so far, and you can't see your family or the Forever from the big-windowed house. Just books. A beautiful desk. Your preferred pencils. The soft light on your aging face. And you walk out into the rain and you don't go back."


p.s.-gone to Malibu...back Thursday. Talk amongst yourselves.

Mothers be good to your daughters

I was so taken with this little one (from Magpie Patterns). Doesn't it look like a lost Vermeer portrait?
One of my great loves is feminist poets writing on the subject of daughters; I think the mother-daughter relationship is the most complex, symbiotic and important human relationship there is, and I thought Audre Lorde's gorgeous poem a nice complement to this picture.


Now That I Am Forever With Child

By Audre Lorde

How the days went
while you were blooming within me
I remember each upon each---
the swelling changed planes of my body
and how you first fluttered, then jumped
and I thought it was my heart.

How the days wound down
and the turning of winter
I recall, with you growing heavy
against the wind. I thought
now her hands
are formed, and her hair
has started to curl
now her teeth are done
now she sneezes.
Then the seed opened
I bore you one morning just before spring
My head rang like a fiery piston
my legs were towers between which
A new world was passing
Since then
I can only distinguish
one thread within running hours
You, flowing through selves
toward You.