The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poem Thread, 8/1/07

[BlueIris]

“A Ritual to Read to Each Other”

If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give—yes or no, maybe—
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

—William Stafford

[BlueIris]

1. I understand if no one gives a rat's...whatever about poems tonight,

(sometimes, obviously, in our world, it's appropriate to just not care given all the tragedy going on) but if anyone has trouble reading these, like, if the punctuation is showing up all screwy on your monitor, please let me know.

[BlueIris]

2. Kick. nt

[wildhorses]

3. thank you for this.

it is wonderful.

i like this william stafford.

:hi:

[BlueIris]

4. I really struggled to find something appropriate for tonight.

Given what's happened in the Twin Cities, there were so few poems I could think of that would be "right" for this climate, let alone bring people any comfort this evening.

I aspire to post quite a few more poems by Stafford. He was Poet Laureate around here for many years, and left a hole so big after he left that we just replaced him a few months ago.

[wildhorses]

6. i would like to hear more from him. looking forward to it.

keep an eye on your views column. take comfort in that :hug:

[idgiehkt]

5. Brilliant, I love it

very beautiful. I have not read this and thanks of exposing me to it, and to the author. Remember that poetry puts people in a very meditative state where they are wanting to look inward...it may be why people are not responding after reading the poem, they are contemplating it's meaning. But so far the ones you have posted have been excellent. :hug:

[BlueIris]

7. Awwwwww. Thanks.

Interesting thought about poetry inducing meditative states.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. My dear BlueIris...

Oh, sweetie, this is very good!

I really respect your efforts all these nights...

I'm not familiar with William Stafford....more please!

I love the last line:

...the darkness around us is deep.

Thank you, sweetie...:pals:

[BlueIris]

9. Well, since he's gotten such a good response here, I will go dig up some more of my favorites.

:hug:

[BlueIris]

10. Kick. nt

[BlueIris]

11. Kick.