On Outer Peace

The Peace of Wild Things

*

 

Wendell Berry

 

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

 

 

-from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

On What They Follow

Children in a Field   * "Limbo"   by Angela Shaw
They don't wade in so much as they are taken. Deep in the day, in the deep of the field, every current in the grasses whispers hurry hurry, every yellow spreads its perfume like a rumor, impelling them further on. It is the way of girls. It is the sway of their dresses in the summer trance- light, their bare calves already far-gone in green. What songs will they follow? Whatever the wood warbles, whatever storm or harm the border promises, whatever calm. Let them go. Let them go traceless through the high grass and into the willow- blur, traceless across the lean blue glint of the river, to the long dark bodies of the conifers, and over the welcoming threshold of nightfall.  -from The Beginning of the Fields -

A Song For Boston

 

 

I just can't get over this terrible event that took place today in Boston. There can never be a good enough answer for why so many happy, healthy people were attacked in the middle of a celebration, poeple who likely had nothing to do with the hate another human felt in their heart...

I know so many people feel the way I do tonight too...

Now when we are all so angry and scared and lost in the wake of this terrible event. It is so important to remember the closest hit up in Boston. It will be a long night for many, many people - victims, survivors, doctors and first responders, 2 deeply grieving familes and many more whose future is now so uncertian. To the law enforcement and their own families. God Bless them all tonight, and in the days that come -- God Bless them all.

 

"Dark Days"

-The Punch Brothers

(for Boston)

Mother, listen to my heart.
Mother, listen to my heart,
Just as one beat ends, another starts.
You can hear no matter where you are
Sister, hide our love away
From the evil we both know.

[Chorus]
It can see you through these dark days,
Though they seem to darken as I go.
Our love will see us through these dark, dark days sister,
'Til it lights the way back home.
Sister, hide our love away.

It can turn the whole world upside down,
Shake it 'til the sky falls to the ground.
We don't have to reap the fear they sow,
Friends, as long as we hide our love away,
In the good they'll never know.

[Chorus]
It can see us through these dark days,
Though they seem to darken as we go.
Our love will see us through these dark, dark days sister,
'Til it lights the way back home.
Sister, hide our love away.

Mother, listen to my heart,
Just as one beats ends, another starts.
You can hear no matter where you are.

 

"Dark Days"

Mother, listen to my heart.
Mother, listen to my heart,
Just as one beat ends, another starts.
You can hear no matter where you are
Sister, hide our love away
From the evil we both know.

[Chorus]
It can see you through these dark days,
Though they seem to darken as I go.
Our love will see us through these dark, dark days sister,
'Til it lights the way back home.
Sister, hide our love away.

It can turn the whole world upside down,
Shake it 'til the sky falls to the ground.
We don't have to reap the fear they sow,
Friends, as long as we hide our love away,
In the good they'll never know.

[Chorus]
It can see us through these dark days,
Though they seem to darken as we go.
Our love will see us through these dark, dark days sister,
'Til it lights the way back home.
Sister, hide our love away.

Mother, listen to my heart,
Just as one beats ends, another starts.
You can hear no matter where you are.

 

-Listen on Amazon

 

 

 

 

 

National Poetry Month 2013 Is Here!!

Hello there all!

I am sooo glad to be back! I needed a little break, but frankly I got quite a bit homesick for my little home away from home here!


Let's Get it Started Right...
Did you know that it was National Poetry Month?



*

The Academy of American Poets and was kicked off in April of 1996.


Just like last year, I will be hosting some poetry material here as well, so get ready!

 After all, I am "The Poetrycooker." Who knows, maybe I'll even get brave and post some of my own material up here - eek!

Got any recommendations, or questions? Send em' my way!



Oscars Recap

Not gonna lie...despite the critics I thought Seth MacFarlane did great. He kept it tamer than everyone expected, and I personally thought "We Saw Your Boobs" was hilarious. If actress were offended by being exploited, perhaps they should remind themselves that they were in fact the person who exploited themselves in the first place. I mean really, it was Seth MacFarlane! Compared to his usual MO, the guy on there stage up might as well have been Mister Rogers. The joke about the Lincoln assassination, followed by his very tounge in cheek question, "too soon?" Hilarious!

I will say, MacFarlane looked very handsome last night...i think I just might have a wee crush. I'll add him to the list somewhere next to Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, and that guy from Bridesmaids. I LOVE those types. Seth MacFarlane has a great singing voice too! I just didn't understand Channing and Charlieze dancing to They Way You Look Tonight, but it was well delivered, nevertheless.

Anyway, the dude didn't even sell out by referenceing Family Guy or anything. The only appearence of MacFarlane offspring seemed to be the new, adorable,potty-mouthed title character from the Oscar host's movie Ted.

I was so excited for Anne Hathaway. Usually I can take or leave her, but her performance in Les Mis left nothing to be desired. Her comment about the plight of Fontine and its still somehow current perspective made me teary. She did very well!

I'm also so glad Brave won best animated feature! I loved the when the filmmaker giving the speech pointed out her teenage daughter, who was the inspiration for Merida. She was adorable. I hope Disney
Keeps producing more culturally responsible movies like Brave and 2009's Princess and the Frog. I was so happy to see my Scottish roots represented in film for young people! Feisty Merida is an excellent role model, and she and the world  filmakers created around her were worthy of an Oscar for sure.

Speaking of little archers, Jennifer Lawerence was just wonderful last night. Even  though she's literary The Face of what's currently the most popular YA franchise in the world, (you know the one) her Oscar nominated performance in Winter's Bone and (now Oscar winning) performance in Silver Linings Playbook had the Hollywood greats asking, "Katniss who?"

And the 22 year old has the best attitude. While she lacks the icy, well-rehearsed behavior of peers such as Hathaway, she has an air of intelligence and composure that's lost on ladies like Kristen Stewart and Miley Cyrus. While she is definitely intelligent, Lawerence, is also often just plain goofy, so she just comes across as nothing but real.

Speaking of, I love her stance on body image and weight loss in Hollywood and I pray she sticks to it.  Lawrence, though outspoken on the issue, is in no way soft or large, but her small, firm frame speaks to what should really be respected as healthy and appealing in Hollywood. Sturdy though she is, her nervousness when introducing the evening's most important performer and subsequent falling up the stairs during her way up to receive rhe award proved that she is nothing but endearingly human. And that is nothing short of wonderful.

(Not gonna lie here either - I wasn't exactly rooting for that cocky 9 year old, who seemed to think she had it on the bag.) Cockiness won't get you far with this lady, sweetie!

Speaking of which, I loved Ben Affleck's speech last night. Though the poor guy was rushed beyond reason, I thought he did a wonderful and heartfelt job, and I loved his comments to wife Jennifer (Garner). That cocky guy who co-wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting has come.a long way.

Can't end this without speaking to the musical performances. They were all just as stellar on stage as edited and presented on screen, and I welled up again over Les Mis. Adele did a bang up job and it's great to see the new mom 3-0 for the major awards for Skyfall, and again, MacFarlane proves his musicality extends far beyond toilet humor and somehow, inexplicably into the realm of Fred Astaire. Surprining, stellar, wow! Stella

On Who You Miss The Most

 

You Were You Are Elegy

*

Mary Jo Bang

Fragile like a child is fragile.

Destined not to be forever.

Destined to become other

To mother. Here I am

Sitting on a chair, thinking

About you. Thinking

About how it was

To talk to you.

How sometimes it was wonderful

And sometimes it was awful.

How drugs when drugs were

Undid the good almost entirely

But not entirely

Because good could always be seen

Glimmering like lame glimmers

In the window of a shop

Called Beautiful

Things Never Last Forever.

I loved you. I love you. You were.

And you are. Life is experience.

It's all so simple. Experience is

The chair we sit on.

The sitting. The thinking

Of you where you are a blank

To be filled

In by missing. I loved you.

I love you like I love

All beautiful things.

True beauty is truly seldom.

You were. You are

In May. May now is looking onto

The June that is coming up.

This is how I measure

The year. Everything Was My Fault

Has been the theme of the song

I've been singing,

Even when you've told me to quiet.

I haven't been quiet.

I've been crying. I think you

Have forgiven me. You keep

Putting your hand on my shoulder

When I'm crying.

Thank you for that. And

For the ineffable sense

Of continuance. You were. You are

The brightest thing in the shop window

And the most beautiful seldom I ever saw.

Poetry (June 2007).

 



-Explore more from Mary Jo Bang



 

On Elemental Sentiments

Sand Flesh and Sky

Clarence Major

*

Our ropes are the roots

of our life. We fish

low in the earth,

the river beneath runs through our veins,

blue and cold in a riverbed.

When the sun comes up,

the moon moves slowly to the left.

I tie the logs and limbs together,

holding them in place.

The ocean beats them

smooth like rock.

Here my sense of time is flat.

I find in a strip of damp sand

footprints and marks of hands,

and torn pieces of flesh.

Night is a beast.

The tide moves, gushing

back and forth.

Sunlight touches our faces,

turning us, turning us, turning us

in our morning sleep.

1976

 



-from Configurations:
 New & Selected Poems, 1958-1998

Pack your Bags, Ladies! It's Saturday(ish)!

Saturday by

 Kate Spade Saturday

Poetry Points

9/10

I love this new collection by Kate Spade - and there's bag's here for all my girls! Whether your style is Bohemian (Mamma), Polished (Sarah),  Artsy (Hannah), Ladylike (Jenna) or Eclectic (Me) - there is something in this collection that fits your aesthetic...

 

Very Fashion-Poetic.

 

My girl Kate loses a point on the price - most of us can't afford $160 for a tiny bag - but she gains tons of credit for being both On-trend and innovative - and for reaching a wide range of styles.

I think it's safe to say that Ms. Spade, while young at heart, has become quite the fashion grown up!

 

 

And Here's My Favorite:

Fab.com

It's not just bags we're talking about either - here are some more Fab products from Kate Spade's Saturday Collection:


 
 
 
 
 
  

On The Journey of a Soul

What I find magical about this piece is the way it relies on the reader to create the speaker's perspective. I believe that the poet has executed this beautifully by using descriptive imagery while remaining vague, but emotional about the speaker's background.

 

It's a powerful and thought-provoking juxtaposition.

 

Fresco

*

Richie Hofmann

I have come again to the perfumed city.

Houses with tiered porches, some decorated with shells.

You know from the windows that the houses

are from a different time. I am not

to blame for what changes, though sometimes

I have trouble sleeping.

Between the carriage houses,

there are little gardens separated by gates.

Lately, I have been thinking about the gates.

The one ornamented with the brass lion, I remember

it was warm to the touch

even in what passes here for winter.

But last night, when I closed my eyes,

it was not the lion that I pictured first.

 

Source: Poetry (November 2012).

 

The experience the speaker had before the poem is unspecific, but not unimportant. 

 

It represents the kind of mystery we encounter not only in strangers, but also in loved ones who have returned home after long journeys.

 

Why is this particular setting special enough for the speaker to have remarked on it to begin with? And hey, where are they anyway? Where is this place?  Have they been there before? How long have they been gone? Where has the speaker been before this? Are they planning on staying or moving on?  Do you find the setting frightening, or hopeful? Is the speaker healing or self-destructing?

Do you think that the fact the speaker dreams about the gates has anything to do with their past and their future? What do those gates mean? Do they confine or protect? Do you think they see themselves as being inside or outside of the gates? Do you think this a more emotional or physical location?

 

 Do you think you see the reader's location (whether physical or emotional) as differently as they see it? Are you, or any of us, for that matter, really all that different from the speaker at all? Who is the speaker after all? After all the answers to these questions - could it really be possible that maybe the speaker is you?\

 

Poet Richie Hofmann

-explore more poetry by Hoffmann

Trust This Winter Love Song

I've always loved this song - it sort of reminds me of being in love with somebody who's not really there - like living in a fantsay world you can't really get out of - like living in a snowglobe

 

 

What's Simple Is True

*

Jewel Kilcher

 

Turn to me with frozen lips
Your hands are icy cold
Your eyes burn bright against the frost-bit sky
You never seemed more lovely than you do right tonight
Pale on the horizon
Like leaves frozen in the snow
Our two shadows merge inseparably
Will time stand still if it's pierced with cold
The more I live
The more I know
What's simple is true
I love you
there's a warmth in my heart
It haunts me when you're gone
Mend me to your side and never let go
Say 'Time knows nothing, we'll never grow cold'
The more I live
The more I know
What's simple is true
I love you
Twilight descends on our silhouette
How soon spring comes
How soon spring forgets
I wanna hold time, say it'll never begin
Old man winter be our friend
Old man winter be our friend
'Cause the more I live
The more I know
What's simple is true
What's simple is true
I love, I love you

 

-from, Spirit