It is a serious thing
Just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world
–Mary Oliver
Category Archives: Poetry
Just to Be Alive On This Fresh Morning
A Name and An Identity
I have just started reading Jesse Thistle’s new book Scars and Stars. It is a book of poetry and he writes the following lines about the experience of being homeless.
The hardest part about being homeless was
not hearing my own name for months at a time.
The silence of identity.
Sometimes I’d wander alone,
and whisper Jesse just to hear it,
a reminder that I was still me,
and still human,
and that I, too, had a name.
When I read Jesse’s poem I was reminded of a sculpture by Bill Nasogaluak. It is on display in the Inua exhibit at the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq. The face Bill has sculpted doesn’t have features. It has a number instead.
In the 1940s government agencies serving the Inuit people decided their traditional names were too complicated to pronounce or spell so they were each given a number instead. These numbers were stamped on leather dog tags and people had to wear them around their necks. In order to access government services they gave their number instead of their name.
Names are so important to our identity. They are chosen with care by our parents and often have a family history attached to them. We all have a need, as Jesse expresses so beautifully in his poem, to be recognized by our names. It makes us feel human. Bill’s faceless sculpture reminds us that when people don’t recognize us by name we lose part of our unique identity.
I always told the university education students I supervised during their internships in schools, that it was very important for them to quickly learn the name of every child in their class and try to make sure they addressed every child by name every day, as often as possible.
During the pandemic when many people were dying alone because family members weren’t permitted in hospitals, Dr Michael Jones the head of a New York medical facility told his staff, “Hold your patient’s hand for a minute as they die, and ask your entire team to stop, state the patient’s name and then bow your heads for 5-10 seconds of silence. This will help us all retain our humanity….
Jesse’s poem and Bill’s sculpture remind us to be more aware of using people’s names to let them know we see them and acknowledge their humanity.
Other posts……….
Crumbs of Joy
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate.
Give in to it.
There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be.
We are not wise, and not very often kind.
And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left.
Perhaps this is its way of fighting back,
that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world.
It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins.
Anyway, that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty.
Joy is not made to be a crumb.
I am a big fan of Mary Oliver’s poetry but I had not read her poem Don’t Hesitate before. On Saturday night we attended the play, Much Ado About Nothing produced by the Shakespeare in the Ruins company. I noticed that actress Sarah Constible had chosen to forgo the usual career highlights in her program profile and simply included the poem Don’t Hesitate beside her photo.
The words really resonated with me. Giving into joy is especially important when the world around us seems dark. In sad or troubling times, we shouldn’t forget that there is an abundance of joy to be found, enough for everyone if we are willing to share it.
We must not hide or horde joy for fear there will only be crumbs. Embrace joy, and look for it every chance you get.
Other posts……..
Flyway- A Captivating Family Story That Will Have You Asking Hard Questions
In her beautiful book Flyway Sarah Ens tells her Mennonite grandmother Anni’s story in the form of a long poem. We begin in Ukraine during the period between 1929 and 1945. Anni’s little sister dies, the churches close and Anni’s father is arrested and taken away. Famine comes.
Hunger taught us to wake slowly, to lift, as if from water.
If you did not starve, hunger taught you
to watch and wait. If you did not starve,
the stone of your stomach turned traitor.
Anni does housework and childcare for her younger siblings while attending school and then graduates just as the Germans invade Ukraine. Amid the war Anni’s brother Peter drowns.
Where is God my mother said.
I saw his body blue beneath a smooth skin of water
After a time of German occupation the Red Army approaches and
evacuees crawled the road……..
35,000 stumbling through the murk. You could hear
their hungry animals in the night, the digging of shallow pits
to hold their dead.
Anni’s family flees their home and her older brother Hans leaves them to fight with the Germans.
Hans stood shifting, crossed one leg behind the other while Mother
warbled. Please God.
Hans would not let her kiss him good-bye.
Anni, her mother and her sister then begin a trek to freedom which takes them through occupied Yugoslavia to Germany and finally to Canada.
Three women flying with what we could carry
Once the women arrive in Canada the family story is told partially through letters which are exchanged between Anni’s brother Hans who remains behind and his mother and sister. The letters in Flyway were inspired by actual family letters collected and translated by one of Sarah’s uncles.
At her book launch last night Sarah said her grandmother’s story has become a type of family myth and in her poetry she wanted to explore how that myth had shaped her. Although her grandmother’s story is clearly marked by tragedy Sarah said her legacy from her Oma Anni would best be characterized as one of joy and love.
The family story in Flyway is interspersed with scenes set in Manitoba’s tall grass prairie where the migration of the poet’s family is compared to the migration of the grassland birds
savannah sparrow; clay coloured sparrow; red-winged blackbird; brown-headed cowbird; western meadowlark; mourning dove
There are many other threads to follow in Flyway and hard questions evoked by Sarah’s meaningful and striking words. I have read the book three times now and each time have been prompted to consider some new questions.
Is religious faith more about what you shouldn’t do or what you should do? How do we respond to the reality that Indigenous people were displaced so Mennonite immigrants would have land on which to settle? What should we do about the fact that one third of migratory grassland birds are on the verge of extinction?
I am the librarian at the church Sarah attends and bought a copy of her book to place on its shelves. But now that I have read Flyway I will be buying a copy of my own as well as several for friends and family who I know will appreciate as I did, its captivating story, exquisite poetry and thought-provoking questions.
Other posts………
The Tree of Life- Poems by Sarah Klassen
Intimacy and Poetry
Did you know April is National Poetry Month in Canada? To celebrate each year The League of Canadian Poets picks a theme and encourages members to write poetry or select poetry to read with that theme in mind. This year the theme is Intimacy and it is described simply as……. a closeness we feel. Artist Megan Fildes has created a marvellous poster that illustrates all kinds of intimacy.
I thought it would be interesting to look for photos in my albums that illustrate the same kinds of intimacy the poster does.
You can have intimate friendships. I get together regularly with this group of long- time friends.
Start dancing with others and you have to establish a kind of intimacy quickly as you try to match your steps and movements. Here I am dancing with some women near Shangri- La City in Yunnan province in China.
I have been forced to reinvent my relationship with my Dad since dementia has changed him. In some ways this has meant our relationship has become more intimate than ever before because he was always an extremely independent person and now he needs my support and help.
Since intimacy is the word for National Poetry month here is a list poem inspired by the photos I found.
Absorbing
Surprising
Unique
Humorous
Changing
Long lasting
Momentary
Lyrical
Inspiring
Sad
Joyful
Intimacy
Other posts………
Filed under Poetry
Ageing
I like the freedom of it, constructing my days as I like, an extra cup of coffee in the morning, an extra glass of wine in the evening
Exploring new ideas and places, the delight of a grandchild’s love, stretching my comfort zone, reading books in stacks, time to create and think and write and volunteer
No longer at an employer’s beck and call, I can defy convention, have opinions of my own, spend time with those I like, do things my way
More cavalier about my appearance, less attached to stuff, less cleaning, long walks
The twinge in my knees, knowing my mother only as a memory, thinking more about my childhood, a friend’s dementia diagnosis
Lost keys, a missed appointment, the forgotten name of a former student
Repeating stories, mourning lost ideals, screens bombarding me with Twitter and Facebook and What’s App and Instagram
Like the screen on the heart monitor erratic and then slowing to a flatline.
Other posts………..
Filed under Poetry, Retirement
Inspired by Mary and John
I haven’t had my usual drive lately and there are projects littered across my desk and on my computer that I just don’t seem to have the energy to tackle. I’ve been neglecting regular exercise and wasting time on shallow pursuits that don’t benefit me or others. This morning I looked to the poet Mary Oliver for inspiration and found it in the third stanza of her poem Fourth Sign of the Zodiac.
I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.
so why not get started immediately.
I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.
And to write music or poems about.
Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.
You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime
When we were in Rome we visited the house where John Keats spent the last few months before he died of tuberculosis at age 25.
I stood in his bedroom and saw the alcove where he may have sat at a desk and penned some of his last writings.
As Mary Oliver reminds us Keats lived a short life but hardly a wasted one. He wrote lines of poetry that still inspire us.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Today a new week begins and I’m going to let John and Mary inspire me to make it a productive and positive one.
Other posts………..
To Pay Attention
In her beautiful and important poem Yes! No! Mary Oliver asks us to remember……..
How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly, looking at everything
She tells us that ………..
To pay attention. This is our endless and proper work.
Mary’s words remind me that whatever I am doing if I pay attention I will find things.……
to surprise me,
to make me think
to humble me
to make me laugh
to engage me
to connect me
to awe me
to delight me
to challenge me
to restore me
to interest me
and inspire me
Mary Oliver has another poem Summer Day in which she says
“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is
I do know how to pay attention.”
“To pay attention. This is our endless and proper work.”
Other posts………….
Filed under Poetry, Reflections
Cattail Skyline-Personal Connections
If you are like me you have a kind of love-hate relationship with berries. I LOVE eating them but childhood memories of picking them in prickly heat amid clouds of mosquitoes are also vivid. Joanne Epp captures the two sides of the berry experience perfectly in five poems about berries in her new book Cattail Skyline.
Joanne made me recall the discomfort of….. branchfuls of prickles that scrape the forearm skin
but she also brought to mind the…… sharp sweetness…… of newly picked berries and the way berry jam…….. eaten on a fresh bun after school ……tasted…. cool and tart.
I so enjoyed the tour of rural Saskatchewan Joanne gives us in her How far can we follow part of the book. Many happy days of my childhood were spent on my grandparents’ farm near Drake Saskatchewan so Joanne’s experiences and evocative descriptions rang true for me.
Lanigan Creek from this section of poems gives the book its title
Swaying on cattails, the blackbirds—
yellow-headed, red-winged—see it all:
their domain and one intruder.
I sidestep down the bank, crouch low.
Blackbirds whistle. I wait.…….
Below the cattail skyline, time
becomes elastic. The silence hums.
I have spent a fair bit of time in Cambodia and so it was Joanne Epp’s poems about her visit there that perhaps resonated with me most as she described the country’s ambience with lines like
the monks in orange yellow robes some of them just boys
the air’s too thick to wade through
Buddha looking down from his dais pink and smiling
sticky rice and cans of Coke for sale.
Like Joanne, I visited Tuol Sleng a former high school turned interrogation centre during the Pol Phot regime. Thousands of people were tortured and killed there and Joanne’s words captured the scene graphically
In the bare room, an iron bed,
shackles, chains.
Photo on the wall verifies
the bloodstain on the floor.
I have biked through Omand’s Creek Park more times than I can count and have picnicked there while canoeing down the Red River. In her set of a dozen poems Joanne takes us through a whole year in the park telling us what is happening there each month. On my most recent visit I noted things from Joanne’s April entry about the park.
Welcome the warbler, the mourning dove,
startled wings rising from footpaths.
Welcome the prelude to leaves, red
stamens clustered on maples.
Welcome the footbridge rising from water,
the creek receding, fish odour of mud.
Cemeteries are one of my favourite places to visit so the eight poems about cemeteries in Cattail Skyline were very meaningful. For me the lines where Joanne best captures the experience of a cemetery visit are…..
you range back through decades, reading grey limestone
obelisks, concrete pillows, slant markers in granite. A
marble tablet, date of death: 1908—the oldest stone your
haphazard search has discovered. Almost ninety years
before your son’s birth—your grandparents were children
then. What else was here? Wagon tracks, pine seedlings
in rows, houses small against the horizon—straight lines
scratched into the landscape. You look up: against the tall
hedge, a cloud of tiny flying things. A shimmer—
I am not a poet so I always appreciate it when a poet can bring to life experiences of mine in beautiful and memorable ways. Joanne Epp did exactly that for me with Cattail Skyline.
The poems in her collection which will resonate with you might be quite different than mine but you are sure to find them.
Other posts……..
Even the gods speak of God
A book I am currently reading has introduced me to the poetry of David Whyte.
Self Portrait is one of my favourite poems so far.
Rotorua New Zealand
Self Portrait
It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
Or many gods.
I want to know if you belong — or feel abandoned;
If you know despair
Or can see it in others.
I want to know
If you are prepared to live in the world
With its harsh need to change you;
If you can look back with firm eyes
Saying “this is where I stand.”
I want to know if you know how to melt
Into that fierce heat of living
Falling toward the centre of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing
To live day by day
With the consequence of love
And the bitter unwanted passion
Of your sure defeat.
I have been told
In that fierce embrace
Even the gods
Speak of God.
~ David Whyte ~
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What Next? 