2 Poems for the Soul

Dear Readers,

Before I let another moment go by, I want to share these two poems with you. One is from the Writer's Almanac for Saturday, October 16, 2010. The other I found while searching for a perfect poem to send one of my good friends. Enjoy. Let the words and the spaces between the words sink in. Read them out loud. Go outside and read them sitting in the harsh October sun under a tree that is setting its leaves free. Let the poems sit with you, for a while. Let the poems challenge you and what you believe words can do; repeat your favorite phrases, words, sounds...

And then, if you feel especially inclined, write one of your own, either just for you or for someone you love.

Love,

Hilary

The Thing Is

by Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

Bach Transcribing Vivaldi

By Lisel Mueller

One remembered the sunrise, how clearly it gave

Substance and praise to the mountains of the world;

The other imagined twilight, the setting in blood,

And a valley of fallen leaves where a stranger might rest.

One avoided the forest and made his way through fields

Where the sky was constant and clouds rang in his ears;

The other cut through the thicket, the thorns and vines

And was not touched, except by the dying of men.

One asked the road to the land of the golden lion

Whose eyes never weep, whose lifted hand scepters

The seasons of stars and the grafting of generations;

The other searched for the kingdom of the lamb

With the trembling fleece, whose live unreasoning heart

Consumes the mortal treasures of his loves.

Still, at one point of the journey one must have seen

The afternoon dip and drop away into shade

And the other come to a place where the forest cleared

Into white and violet patches of stars.