to my children (poetic friday, week one)
I think some of you might know how I love poetry. I love to sound it out, read it out loud in empty rooms, sit with it when sentences and paragraphs don't quite fit. so on Fridays around here, I'm going to write and share poetry with you. It will be poetry that's messy and raw, but the only way to be a poet is to listen close to poetry.First, a poem for your weekend:In the Month of May (Robert Bly)In the month of May when all leaves open,I see when I walk how well all thingslean on each other, how the bees work,the fish make their living the first day.Monarchs fly high; then I understandI love you with what in me is unfinished.I love you with what in me is stillchanging, what has no head or armsor legs, what has not found its body.And why shouldn't the miraculous,caught on this earth, visitthe old man alone in his hut?And why shouldn't Gabriel, who loves honey,be fed with our own radishes and walnuts?And lovers, tough ones, how many there arewhose holy bodies are not yet born.Along the roads, I see so many placesI would like us to spend the night.And a poem from me, "to my children"I don't believe in you yet.You live in my fierce fever of love,and waiting.I imagine your faces upturned to mine,all eyes, all need.You terrify me.Some days I don’t want you.I’d rather the other dreams – the ones that float bylike jellyfish or balloons.But I see you, tear-streaked and soft,your shadow kicks against my skin.I don't know you yet, but stillI've named you a thousand times,when everything is departure and arrival and unknowing.Even from this great distance,you are the bright ones, the comets.The gifts.