Boy, I love this poem. I am working on memorizing it, to have with me all the day. Now that I have the words down, I can share it with you.

Iambs for the Day of Burial
Thomas Lynch


Of all our private parts the heart knows best
that love and grieving share the one body
and keeps a steady iambic tally
of this life's syllables, stressed and unstressed.
Our pulse divided by our breathing equals
pleasure measured in pentameters,
pain endured in oddly rhyming pairs:
sadness, gladness, sex and death, nuptials,
funerals. Love made and love forsaken --
each leaves us breathless and beatified,
more than the sum of parts that lived and died
of love or grief. Both leave the heart broken.

----Tonight I am trying to remember how to dance.



To be alive
by Gregory Orr


To be alive: not just the carcass
But the spark.
That's crudely put, but...


If we're not supposed to dance,
Why all this music?

Saffron wrote:Boy, I love this poem. I am working on memorizing it, to have with me all the day. Now that I have the words down, I can share it with you.

Iambs for the Day of Burial
Thomas Lynch


Of all our private parts the heart knows best
that love and grieving share the one body
and keeps a steady iambic tally
of this life's syllables, stressed and unstressed.
Our pulse divided by our breathing equals
pleasure measured in pentameters,
pain endured in oddly rhyming pairs:
sadness, gladness, sex and death, nuptials,
funerals. Love made and love forsaken --
each leaves us breathless and beatified,
more than the sum of parts that lived and died
of love or grief. Both leave the heart broken.

The 'oddly rhyming pairs' in this were so effective, combined with the two true rhymes in lines 1 & 4 and 10 & 11, and the internal rhymes. Yet it's all not obtrusive. Good find!

I've known of Louise Gluck for sometime, but for reasons I can't quite figure, I resisted reading her poetry. A good friend took me in hand or more precisely, put into my hand Gluck's Pulitzer winning collection, Wild Iris and waited for me to read. I can only say I am sorry I waited so long!

Wild Iris

At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:

from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater.

Well, I stand up next to a mountain
And I chop it down with the edge of my hand

Yeah

Well, I stand up next to a mountain
And I chop it down with the edge of my hand
Well, I pick up all the pieces and make an island
Might even raise a little sand

Yeah

'cause I'm a voodoo child
Lord knows I'm a voodoo child baby
I want to say one more last thing
I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time
I'll give it right back to ya one of these days

Hahaha

I said I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time
I'll give it right back one of these days

Oh yeah

If I don't meet you no more in this world then uh
I'll meet ya on the next one
And don't be late
Don't be late

'cause I'm a voodoo child voodoo child
Lord knows I'm a voodoo child

Hey hey hey

I'm a voodoo child baby
I don't take no for an answer

Question no
Yeah

Voodoo Child by Hendrix, go Grim! There is a thread for lyrics. We had fun with it for awhile dedicating song lyrics to one another. Tell you what, I'll post one for you. Now I've got to think of one.......

For a couple of months, I've been reading Robt. Frost's Complete Poems and two biographies. It can be valuable to read everything an author wrote, and it's usually more possible to do this with poets than novelists. One thought that stikes me is whether a great writer might be at times much worse than a mediocre or minor writer. I mean the ability to carry both good insprirations and those that seem to be bad ones through to completion might be the mark of the great writer, while the mediocre writer occupies a narrower range and is more timid. And Frost has some poems, a number of his longer ones, that are just about unreadable for me. He seems to ask an awful lot of the reader's patience and indulgence in these poems that are philosophical and political.

Another thing I realize is about myself as a reader. Frost is not quite a modern poet, or has one foot in the pre-modern age and one in the modern. I can now admit that I like more traditional poets like Frost and don't like much of modern poetry. I like the forms traditional poets are likely to use and the connection to incantation that the older poems still have, which often is supplied by rhyme. A lot of modern poetry I just don't get, the experience or perception of the poet seeming to be so personal, idiosyncratic and oblique, and the language being not easily distinguishable from prose.

So what is the poem of the moment, if you're still reading? This one I picked because it shows Frost's interest in science. He took note especially of astronomy and evolution. Pehaps this poem and Frost's "Design" are the only sonnets ever written about natural selection?

On a Bird Singing in Its Sleep

A bird half wakened in the lunar noon
Sang halfway through its little inborn tune.
Partly because it sang ventriloquist
And had the inspiration to desist
Almost before the prick of hostile ears,
It ventured less in peril than appears.
It could not have come down to us so afar
Through the interstices of things ajar
On the long bead chain of repeated birth
To be a bird while we are men on earth
If singing out of sleep and dream that way
Had made it much more easily a prey.

This is not truly a poem of the moment. I was remiss and didn't note that Robert Burn's birthday was yesterday, Jan. 25. The year was 1759. I like Burns mainly for one reason: as I sat in my 11th grade English class back in the 60s, not into very much of anything at the time (to tell the truth), my teacher played a recording of Burns" "To a Mouse" (pronounced "moose") This unlikely poem caught me and I began to love poetry. It was that simple. I learned the poem as I remember the performer reading it, and today I can still inflict on an unlucky person a recital in an alarming Scots brogue.

While walking in Barre, VT one day, I came upon a statue of Burns on a square. No idea why it was there.

Here it is, first in Burns' language, then in an English version, much inferior!

Burns Original

To A Mouse

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty
Wi bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murdering pattle.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth born companion
An' fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request;
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't.

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's win's ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld.

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still thou are blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!

Standard English Translation

Small, sleek, cowering, timorous beast,
O, what a panic is in your breast!
You need not start away so hasty
With hurrying scamper!
I would be loath to run and chase you,
With murdering plough-staff.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
And justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth born companion
And fellow mortal!

I doubt not, sometimes, but you may steal;
What then? Poor beast, you must live!
An odd ear in twenty-four sheaves
Is a small request;
I will get a blessing with what is left,
And never miss it.

Your small house, too, in ruin!
It's feeble walls the winds are scattering!
And nothing now, to build a new one,
Of coarse grass green!
And bleak December's winds coming,
Both bitter and keen!

You saw the fields laid bare and wasted,
And weary winter coming fast,
And cozy here, beneath the blast,
You thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel plough past
Out through your cell.

That small bit heap of leaves and stubble,
Has cost you many a weary nibble!
Now you are turned out, for all your trouble,
Without house or holding,
To endure the winter's sleety dribble,
And hoar-frost cold.

But Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leaves us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

Still you are blest, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!

Thanks for posting that! I've always loved it and as you state, much better in the original. Made my day!

You're very welcome. I love the simple humanity of the poem and of Burns in general ("A man's a man for a' that!").