Working Together

WORKING TOGETHER

We shape our self
to fit this world

and by the world
are shaped again.

The visible
and the invisible

working together
in common cause,

to produce
the miraculous.

I am thinking of the way
the intangible air

passed at speed
round a shaped wing

easily
holds our weight.

So may we, in this life
trust

to those elements
we have yet to see

or imagine,
and look for the true

shape of our own self
by forming it well

to the great
intangibles about us.

~ David Whyte ~

(House of Belonging)

Teaching Poetry: Invisible Indian

It seems only fitting that I would teach poetry more intensely to my students during National Poetry Month. We read and discussed this poem today. Ninety per cent of my students are Native American. They understood the poem, but were surprised that somebody thought the woman was Hispanic. They live among their people on the reservation where I teach. Indians know Indians. The last verse was the one that struck all of us. We wondered what "the turquoise in my heart" meant.

Invisible Indian

A few weeks ago

the cashier at the grocery store,

seeing my dark hair

and dark eyes,

counted my change

back to me in Spanish

Three days later

the waitress at the pizza place

made the same mistake.

Happens all the time

since I moved to Miami.

As though without buckskin, braids and beads

I don’t exist.

At a pow-wow last Sunday

I spoke to a Cherokee

wearing faded black jeans and a tee shirt

standing beside a display of stone sculptures

I told him I admired his work.

He didn’t mistake me for Hispanic

But saw that I was Indian

and even guessed my tribe.

Other Indians always recognize me.

Maybe they hear the echoes of the drums

In the rhythms of my voice.

Glimpses the shadows of my Indian grandmother

In the chiseled cheekbones of my face,

Or see the turquoise in my heart.

-Deloras (Dee) Lane

Thank You Judith Viorst: The Pleasures of An Ordinary Life

It seems to me like Judith Viorst would be frozen in time. Her books have been so timeless, yet she has grown up with the rest of us. Each decade of her life she has written a volume of poetry sharing the joys and ups and downs of reaching that age. I have to admit I was shocked recently to discover she has a volume for the seventies and eighties. How did Judith Viorst get to be eighty? It proves the point I always say.... age is just a number. The following poem by Viorst came from her "Forever Fifties" volume . This poem makes perfect sense to me. I to have grasped and hung on to those sweet sweet pleasures of ordinary life. The Pleasures of  An Ordinary Life

Of dreams I know no longer can come true. I'm done now with the whys and the becauses. It's time to make things good, not just make do. It's time to stop complaining and pursue The pleasures of an ordinary life. I used to rail against my compromises. I yearned for the wild music, the swift race. But happiness arrived in new disguises: Sun lighting a child's hair. A friend's embrace. Slow dancing in a safe and quiet place. The pleasures of an ordinary life. I'll have no trumpets, triumphs, trails of glory. It seems the woman I've turned out to be Is not the heroine of some grand story. But I have learned to find the poetry In what my hands can touch, my eyes can see. The pleasures of an ordinary life. Young fantasies of magic and of mystery Are over. But they really can't compete With all we've built together: A long history. Connections that help render us complete. Ties that hold and heal us. And the sweet, Sweet pleasures of an ordinary life. Judith Viorst

Caroline Kennedy Shares Joy Harjo

Caroline Kennedy has done so much to promote the arts in our country. I am sure her father encouraged her, but most of the inspiration and love for the arts came from her mother. Caroline has put together five poetry anthologies celebrating the art of poetry. ( note: The Patriot's Handbook and A Family Christmas also includes songs, stories and speeches)Each time I look through one of my copies, I love the photos of her sitting reading with her mother, or posing in a chair reading to her teddy bear, or sitting side by side with her father. There is not a poem in all the volumes I don't love. It is hard to pick a favorite to share. I chose the following from her latest collection "She Walks In Beauty, A Woman's Journey Through Poems".

Eagle Poem

BY JOY HARJO

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear;

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty.

Joy Harjo, “Eagle Poem” from In Mad Love and War. Copyright © 1990 by Joy Harjo. Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press,
www.wesleyan.edu/wespress.

I am also pleased I found this again tonight because I feel strongly it is a poem my students will connect to when we return to school Monday.

Fresh Sorrow: Saying Good-bye to a Pet

I was in Moscow, Idaho staying with a friend when I got the call from my former husband that my first pet and dear springer spaniel Nikki had died.  He asked me if he could bury her behind our former house in the orchard where she used to love to run and hunt pheasants. He asked me if he could wrap her in her favorite blanket. I remember mumbling yes and yes. He only had visitation rights since he left us. It only seemed fair.I remember going into the shower to sob in privacy. I also went for a long walk to mourn a bit longer. It was a long time before I completely recovered. When I reread Jane Kenyon's  The Blue Bowl this evening I understood all that she was saying. Since I have moved to my present house there are many pets that have been buried on the property.

The Blue Bowl

by Jane Kenyon

Like primitives we buried the cat

with his bowl. Bare-handed

we scraped sand and gravel

back into the hole.

                             They fell with a hiss

and thud on his side,

on his long red fur, the white feathers

between his toes, and his

long, not to say aquiline, nose.

We stood and brushed each other off.

There are sorrows keener than these.

Silent the rest of the day, we worked,

ate, stared, and slept. It stormed

all night; now it clears, and a robin

burbles from a dripping bush

like the neighbor who means well

but always says the wrong thing.

Jane Kenyon, “The Blue Bowl” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2005 by Jane Kenyon. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press.
Source: Poetry (June 1987).

Fresh Flowers: A Prayer of Spring

As I picked the first spring flowers from my gardens today I remembered this poem by Robert Frost. I found it this evening and reread it. Frost is one of my favorite poets. He can take a subject all of us understand and weave his words in such a way that makes us think about it in a slightly different way. That is another reason I like poetry.

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil. 

Robert Frost