Poetry Sunday: There Will Come Soft Rains (War Time) by Sara Teasdale

Sara Teasdale was an American poet of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She died in 1933. She was admired and acclaimed for her lyrical poetry, receiving the Pulitzer Prize for it in 1918. This is perhaps her most famous poem, a piece that describes a beautiful natural world that is indifferent to human conflict.  A world that might be better off if, in fact, spring should arrive some day to find us gone.

There Will Come Soft Rains (War Time)

by Sara Teasdale

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,

And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Poetry Sunday: Ode to Kool-Aid by Marcus Jackson

And now for something completely different...

I remember so well the summers when my kids were growing up and their beverage of choice was always Kool-Aid. I wonder how many gallons of that stuff I mixed over those years. Well, Marcus Jackson understands and he thinks that beverage deserves to be celebrated.

Ode to Kool-Aid

by Marcus Jackson

You turn the kitchen

tap’s metallic stream

into tropical drink,
extra sugar whirlpooling
to the pitcher-bottom
like gypsum sand.
Purplesaurus Rex, Roarin’
Rock-A-Dile Red, Ice Blue
Island Twist, Sharkleberry Fin;
on our tongues, each version
keeps a section, like tiles
on the elemental table.
In ninth grade, Sandra
employed a jug of Black Cherry
to dye her straightened
bangs burgundy.
When toddlers swallow you,
their top lips mustache in color
as if they’ve kissed paint.
The trendy folks can savor
all that imported mango nectar
and health-market juice.
We need factory-crafted packets,
unpronounceable ingredients,
a logo cute enough to hug,
a drink unnaturally sweet
so that, on the porch,
as summer sun recedes,
Granddad takes out his teeth
to make more mouth to admit you.

Poetry Sunday: In Summer Time by Paul Dunbar

Paul Dunbar's poem describes the kind of summer that I remember from my time of growing up on the farm. It was indeed a time which lulled the senses and made for drowsy indolence when all one really wanted to do was take a nap in the shade of an oak tree. But since it was a farm, there were animals and fields to be cared for, so no time for napping. Still one could enjoy the "birds' songs," the "bees' low monotone," and the "waters' drone" while one took care of those necessary chores. The music of summer.

In Summer Time

by Paul Dunbar

When summer time has come, and all

The world is in the magic thrall

Of perfumed airs that lull each sense
To fits of drowsy indolence;
When skies are deepest blue above,
And flow'rs aflush,—then most I love
To start, while early dews are damp,
And wend my way in woodland tramp
Where forests rustle, tree on tree,
And sing their silent songs to me;
Where pathways meet and pathways part,—
To walk with Nature heart by heart,
Till wearied out at last I lie
Where some sweet stream steals singing by
A mossy bank; where violets vie
In color with the summer sky,—
Or take my rod and line and hook,
And wander to some darkling brook,
Where all day long the willows dream,
And idly droop to kiss the stream,
And there to loll from morn till night—
Unheeding nibble, run, or bite—
Just for the joy of being there
And drinking in the summer air,
The summer sounds, and summer sights,
That set a restless mind to rights
When grief and pain and raging doubt
Of men and creeds have worn it out;
The birds' song and the water's drone,
The humming bee's low monotone,
The murmur of the passing breeze,
And all the sounds akin to these,
That make a man in summer time
Feel only fit for rest and rhyme.
Joy springs all radiant in my breast;
Though pauper poor, than king more blest,
The tide beats in my soul so strong
That happiness breaks forth in song,
And rings aloud the welkin blue
With all the songs I ever knew.
O time of rapture! time of song!
How swiftly glide thy days along
Adown the current of the years,
Above the rocks of grief and tears!
'Tis wealth enough of joy for me
In summer time to simply be.

Poetry Sunday: Earthrise by Amanda Gorman

I've found myself thinking this week about how our planet is viewed from outer space and it turns out that former U.S. poet laureate Amanda Gorman has given some thought to that also. She published this poem on just that subject a few years ago. In it, she urges us "to keep rising up for an earth more than worth fighting for." Those are words we should take to heart and on which we must act for the future of life on Earth.

Earthrise

(Dedicated to Al Gore and The Climate Reality Project)

by Amanda Gorman

On Christmas Eve, 1968, astronaut Bill Anders
Snapped a photo of the earth

As Apollo 8 orbited the moon.

Those three guys
Were surprised
To see from their eyes
Our planet looked like an earthrise
A blue orb hovering over the moon’s gray horizon,
with deep oceans and silver skies.

It was our world’s first glance at itself
Our first chance to see a shared reality,
A declared stance and a commonality;

A glimpse into our planet’s mirror,
And as threats drew nearer,
Our own urgency became clearer,
As we realize that we hold nothing dearer
than this floating body we all call home.

We’ve known
That we’re caught in the throes
Of climactic changes some say
Will just go away,
While some simply pray
To survive another day;
For it is the obscure, the oppressed, the poor,
Who when the disaster
Is declared done,
Still suffer more than anyone.

Climate change is the single greatest challenge of our time,

Of this, you’re certainly aware.
It’s saddening, but I cannot spare you
From knowing an inconvenient fact, because
It’s getting the facts straight that gets us to act and not to wait.

So I tell you this not to scare you,
But to prepare you, to dare you
To dream a different reality,

Where despite disparities
We all care to protect this world,
This riddled blue marble, this little true marvel
To muster the verve and the nerve
To see how we can serve
Our planet. You don’t need to be a politician
To make it your mission to conserve, to protect,
To preserve that one and only home
That is ours,
To use your unique power
To give next generations the planet they deserve.

We are demonstrating, creating, advocating

We heed this inconvenient truth, because we need to be anything but lenient
With the future of our youth.

And while this is a training,
in sustaining the future of our planet,
There is no rehearsal. The time is
Now
Now
Now,
Because the reversal of harm,
And protection of a future so universal
Should be anything but controversial.

So, earth, pale blue dot
We will fail you not.

Just as we chose to go to the moon
We know it’s never too soon
To choose hope.
We choose to do more than cope
With climate change
We choose to end it—
We refuse to lose.
Together we do this and more
Not because it’s very easy or nice
But because it is necessary,
Because with every dawn we carry
the weight of the fate of this celestial body orbiting a star.
And as heavy as that weight sounded, it doesn’t hold us down,
But it keeps us grounded, steady, ready,
Because an environmental movement of this size
Is simply another form of an earthrise.

To see it, close your eyes.
Visualize that all of us leaders in this room
and outside of these walls or in the halls, all
of us changemakers are in a spacecraft,
Floating like a silver raft
in space, and we see the face of our planet anew.
We relish the view;
We witness its round green and brilliant blue,
Which inspires us to ask deeply, wholly:
What can we do?
Open your eyes.
Know that the future of
this wise planet
Lies right in sight:
Right in all of us. Trust
this earth uprising.
All of us bring light to exciting solutions never tried before
For it is our hope that implores us, at our uncompromising core,
To keep rising up for an earth more than worth fighting for.

Poetry Sunday: Family Reunion by Dorianne Laux

Summer was the time for family reunions in the place where I grew up. My own family's (which coincided with that of our church) was the third Sunday in June. It was always hot - it was mid-June in the South after all. 

People came from far and near to spend a day with family and friends that they might not see for another year - if ever again. There was all-day singing at the church with "dinner on the ground," except it wasn't really on the ground. It was on a long series of wooden tables built behind the church. People brought their food from home and spread it on the tables and everybody shared. Potato salad and fried chicken always featured prominently in the food that was brought.

When I was growing up, my mother always got me a new dress and shoes for the day and I generally ended the day with blisters on my heels from the new shoes. But that was a minor inconvenience.

When I came across this poem in my search for one to feature this week, it reminded me of those days and of so many people that I loved who are no longer there. No more family reunions when so many of the family members are gone. But anyway who needs a picture of it all when the camera of the mind remembers...

Family Reunion

by Dorianne Laux

Camera in hand, I call out to them,
one by one, in twos and threes,

working up to the group shots,

the family portrait.

My nephews, scrubbed clean, dressed

in red, hug each other's mirror image

and smile the same smile.

Head to head, their dark hair mingles

as the shutter clicks.

Now I sit the baby between them,

my niece who has my eyes, my nose,

a stranger's wide mouth.

The flash going off in her face

makes her love the small black box

I hold, so much, she is willing to pose

forever, as if I held the force

of the sun, a gorgeous toy, and all

her days balanced in my hands.

Grandmother squeezes in, holds

her baby's babies in her diminishing lap,

circles the shoulders of her son,

her daughters, my own shy daughter,

and pulls them into the frame,

the fine lines of noses and chins

a painter's signature stroke.

I take picture after picture,

the windows going darker

with each bright flash, each face

held up to the repetition of light.

But when I look to see how many frames

are left, I find the tiny window

in the camera is empty, remember

the film left on my dresser

500 miles away. I smile at my family,

ask them to stay where they are

just a few minutes longer as I press

the blank shutter again

and again, burning their images into my own

incorruptible lens, picture

after perfect picture, saving them all

with my naked eye, my bare hands,

the purest light of my love.

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Poetry Sunday: Summer Magic by Leslie Pinckney Hill

Here's a poem about summer by a poet that I was not familiar with. He was an African-American born in Virginia in 1880. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard with a bachelor's degree in 1903 and a master's degree a year later and in 1922 he wrote this poem about summer. It seems to describe the season well, don't you think?

     She hung aloft the rounding moon,

  She poured her sunshine on the earth,
She drove the sap and broke the bud,
  She set the crimson rose afire.

Here's the poem in its entirety:

Summer Magic

by Leslie Pinckney Hill

So many cares to vex the day,  

So many fears to haunt the night,

My heart was all but weaned away

  From every lure of old delight.
Then summer came, announced by June,
  With beauty, miracle and mirth.
She hung aloft the rounding moon,
  She poured her sunshine on the earth,
She drove the sap and broke the bud,
  She set the crimson rose afire.
She stirred again my sullen blood,
  And waked in me a new desire.
Before my cottage door she spread
  The softest carpet nature weaves,
And deftly arched above my head
  A canopy of shady leaves.
Her nights were dreams of jeweled skies,
  Her days were bowers rife with song,
And many a scheme did she devise
  To heal the hurt and soothe the wrong.
For on the hill or in the dell,
  Or where the brook went leaping by
Or where the fields would surge and swell
  With golden wheat or bearded rye,
I felt her heart against my own,
  I breathed the sweetness of her breath,
Till all the care of time had flown,
  And I was lord of life and death.

Poetry Sunday: Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye

Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis to a father who was a Palestinian refugee and a mother who was an American of German and Swiss descent. Through the years, she has been the recipient of many honors and awards for her work. This poem was written in 1952 and I think you will agree that it has aged well.

 

Kindness

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

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Poetry Sunday: On the Fifth Day by Jane Hirshfield

Searching for a poem to feature this week I came across this one by an award-winning poet that I, frankly, was not familiar with and it felt just perfect for this moment. And now I will definitely be reading more of her poetry.

It seems that the scientists are now forbidden to speak or at least they are not listened to when they do speak. We will pay a price for this. We are already paying a price for this. Perhaps we have already reached the fifth day...

On the Fifth Day

by Jane Hirshfield

On the fifth day
the scientists who studied the rivers
were forbidden to speak

or to study the rivers.

The scientists who studied the air

were told not to speak of the air,

and the ones who worked for the farmers

were silenced,

and the ones who worked for the bees.

Someone, from deep in the Badlands,

began posting facts.

The facts were told not to speak

and were taken away.

The facts, surprised to be taken, were silent.

Now it was only the rivers

that spoke of the rivers,

and only the wind that spoke of its bees,

while the unpausing factual buds of the fruit trees

continued to move toward their fruit.

The silence spoke loudly of silence,

and the rivers kept speaking

of rivers, of boulders and air.

Bound to gravity, earless and tongueless,

the untested rivers kept speaking.

Bus drivers, shelf stockers,

code writers, machinists, accountants,

lab techs, cellists kept speaking.

They spoke, the fifth day,

of silence.