A Pantoum for the Un-Poet

So maybe this should be a week for the un-poet in me. The person who sits staring at the computer screen waiting for the words to be released, for the sounds to slink, and the meanings to follow. When I was in high school, I put the pen to paper because the world was poetry to me, was rhythm and consonant and form. The world was the Pablo Neruda poem, "Poet's Obligation," as he writes, "So, through me, freedom and the sea will make their answer to the shuttered heart." 

Is it my own heart that's shuttered? Against the changes surely knocking at my door? Against growing up, and apart? In high school I dreamed that through me, freedom and the sea would make their answer to the shuttered heart of the world. And now, do I dare to dream that wide? Do I imagine that through me, these humble words and ideas and meanings, these questions I ask and answer, freedom and the sea might make their way to you? Do I imagine that the act of writing, however difficult and however unwilling and unpoetic I feel, might unshutter my own heart? Sometimes writing is the only way I can listen closer to the world. 


Assignment: Write a poem. Write a pantoum, this time, a different rhyme and rhythm scheme: each stanza is 4 lines. The second and fourth lines of the preceding stanza become the first and third lines of the next, and so on. The last stanza ends with lines from the first stanza.

Okay. Deep breath. Here we go!

Rouen Cathedral (The Monet Series)

I never notice anything but light:
you brushed this canvas full of sun
and colors bleed their darks to white,
Did you paint to pray, your heart undone?

You brushed this canvas full of sun
shadows arch their backs towards the night.
Did you paint or pray, your heart undone
by time's untimely march, the painter's plight?

Shadows arch their backs towards the night:
your whispered windows, doors, melt to one
in time's untimely march, but not your plight,
each canvas holds a moment just begun.

You whispered, "Windows! Doors!" They became one.
Evening shafts of sunset climb the heights,
each canvas holds the moment now begun:
The harmonies of wind and stone take flight.

Evening shafts of sunset climb the height
your hands prepare; your patience won
by harmonies of wind and stone in flight
you touch the brush, your blindness all but gone.

Your hands prepare the place, your patience won.
The West Façade dissolves. The world breathes bright.
You touch the brush, your blindness finished, gone -
A purple streak drips through our shallow sight.

The West Façade dissolves: the world breathes bright.
I close my eyes, and pray, may I become -
a purple streak drips through my shallow sight -
someone with eyes and heart whose song welcomes?

I close my eyes, pray, please, become
the colors bleeding darks towards white -
become the song - eyes - heart - welcome.
I cannot treasure anything but light.

© Hilary Sherratt.

May poetry sing in your heart today, and may Monet's Rouen Cathedral series whisper about the beauty of this world.

Love,

Hilary

A Villanelle for the Un-Poet

Assignment: Write a poem, one even from the heart that feels conspicuously void of poetry. Write a villanelle, to be specific. And do it in the blogger window, straight into the screen, without worrying. Write a poem to put a piece of yourself on paper, even if it's incomplete.

Phew. Okay. I type this assignment to myself because I feel distinctly un-poetic these days. I can hear words whistle by but I can't catch them. My writer's net feels light, and empty, looking at the people and places in my life I want to give words to, and being lost. How do you write silence into being, the quick intake of breath when you watch the retreating figure? How do you put words to the aching swell of the violin? How do you slip the nervous heartfelt eyes of horses in between letters on a screen? 

I don't know how to do these things, and again and again I come back to words. Words as clean and clear as water. Words that lilt and dip like hummingbirds into honeysuckle. Words that spin constellations. 

Okay. A villanelle. I'm going to try!

The Sea

Write soft and slow, and let the words emerge,

and coax their music from its twilight cave.

The sea and stars and skies at once converge. 

Lean low and hear beneath the wind's slow dirge

a joyful whispered "praise" where wind meets wave, 

write soft and slow, and let the words emerge.

And here you sit, your hands washed in the surge

the water cool to touch, you find you're saved - 

for sea, and stars, and skies always converge.

Is there more to know? You ask, immersed.

To make the newborn poem whose words engrave -

write soft and slow, and let the world emerge?

Tread lightly now, tiptoe to the verge

and watch the trees quiver, bold and brave

the sea and stars and skies again converge.

Your heartbeat quick, you breathe the word, "diverse,"

and know the poem makes music from its cave.

Write soft, and slow, and let your words emerge, 

for sea and skies and stars touch, then, converge.

© Hilary Sherratt.

That was the first attempt! May poetry be near your heart, however un-poetic you may feel, dear friends. 

Love,

Hilary

Like a ship blown from its mooring (A Five Minute Post)

Lisa-Jo says, write about every day for just five minutes - won't you join us? There's nothing like letting your words fly free and watching with amazement at what comes out!

I've been singing (off-key) the final duet from "Wicked" - the one about being changed for good, forever, because you met this person and they changed the course of your life. And there's a line that hits the high notes sweet and every moment of every day that I feel like I just might not be enough, pretty enough, smart enough, good enough - I belt the note in my head and sometimes out loud to remember that

every day 

I sing the praises of the good God and I laugh with the achingly beautiful wind through the summer leaves and I get to read words flowing like water and I get to write. That every day people enter this whirlwind heart of mine and blow it from its mooring further out towards heaven, towards love, towards the path of obedience.

And thank you for the every day: the extra second of hug when you read my face knowingly, the email that carries an extra paragraph for good measure telling me that I matter, that this life is good, every day it's good. And thank you for being the people who make my life changed for good. Who teach me to sing the high note in my head and out loud and to dream ramshackle dreams and to venture out into the ocean of love and letting my life be a song of rejoicing.

Love,
Hilary