Tag short lyric poems

* strange week 2: tree yoga & cinquains

José Angel Araguz 2 Comments

So: another strange week has come upon us.

(No – nothing to do with the election.  Well, not really.)

There has been some construction going on in our house these past two weeks, much of it occurring on my days off – which are the days that I sit down to formulate the good thoughts for my usual Friday posts.  However, I believe this week will be the last of it.  Next week, be ready for something more familiar from the Friday Influence.  This week, I have three things to share.

First: this tree.

tree yoga?

This is a tree just around the corner from the bookstore where I work.  The city boy in me marvels at the way a tree will shape itself to its surroundings.  Gives me hope – a sort of symbol for adjusting to the world while still being yourself.

***

Secondly: I am happy to report that my chapbook, The Wall, has gone into a second printing.  Thanks to all who put in orders for your support and consideration.  Thank you as well to the good folk at Tiger’s Eye Press.

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…and lastly: some cinquains!

*

Fabric

Like the
Stitching of a
Shirt-seam when you stretch it
To see the crossing thread – so are
The clouds.

 

 

Heart

Not the
Throbbing thing in
Each of us, but something
As alive lingers in this bee’s
Dying.

 

 

Hope

A stone
Thrown and hitting
The bottom of the sea,
Where colors grow from dark – so one
Believes.

***

Happy believing!

J

* w. s. merwin & the friday influence

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment

Dusk in Winter – W. S. Merwin

The sun sets in the cold without friends
Without reproaches after all it has done for us
It goes down believing in nothing
When it has gone I hear the stream running after it
It has brought its flute it is a long way

***

 This week on the Influence: W. S. Merwin!

What I love about Merwin’s poem above is how he gets in so much into a few lines.  Not only the brevity but the subject matter.

We are told that the best novels throughout history deal namely with family/love relationships, that there is so much to said within those frames of humanity.  Equally, poems are said to be about either love, life, or death.

What the stock objects – rain, leaves turning colors, rivers flowing, waiting in line at a grocery store – serve are to open up something everyone can identify with while following along with the poet to see how it is they see it.

That personal take on things – whether it is evoked in turns of phrase or particular images and narrative – is the fingerprint on the poem, the echo of the soul passing through the words (through the world, through the reader), what it is that teaches and awes in a poem.  It is the hardest thing to achieve: singularity, an indelible presence.

Merwin’s work in translation (his Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems has been the standard for years) comes through here in the way he turns a sunset into a fable of sorts, works the images down into the emotions they evoke.  The starkness created by not having punctuation cues me in as a reader to engage with the poem, to follow the logic of the phrasing as it unfolds, each turn a little surprise along the way.

***

rains, yo

The rainy season has officially begun here in Eugene.  In honor, here’s one more by Merwin:

To the Rain – W. S. Merwin

You reach me out of the age of the air
clear
falling toward me
each one new
if any of you has a name
it is unknown

but waited for you here
that long
for you to fall through it knowing nothing

hem of the garment
do not wait
until I can love all that I am to know
for maybe that will never be

touch me this time
let me love what I cannot know
as the man born blind may love color
until all that he loves
fills him with color

***

Happy filling!

J

(photograph found on: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2008/sep/26/poster.poems.rain.poetry)