It's been a long time for me blogging here, but I've got some time before I head into work and I'm feeling really melancholy right now, so I thought I'd post this poem I found in the May 18, 2009 New Yorker magazine.
For about 10 years now, I've been snubbing my nose at poetry. I wasn't always this way, I used to love it. But I've become so damn crusty and impatient that I haven't let poetry in for a while. I just kept saying to myself, I don't get it! What's the point? Just being very pragmatic about it all.
Then the other day I stumbled across this poem, and for some reason, it has stuck with me. So I thought I'd share it with this blog. I hope you can feel what I feel when you read this for yourself.
DELPHINIUMS IN A WINDOW BOX
Every sunrise, even strangers' eyes.
Not necessarily swans, even crows,
even the evening fusillade of bats.
That place where the creek goes underground,
how many weeks before I see you again?
Stacks of books, every page, characters'
rages and poets' strange contraptions
of syntax and song, every song
even when there isn't one.
Every thistle, splinter, butterfly
over the drainage ditches. Every stray.
Did you see the meteor shower?
Did it feel like something swallowed?
Every question, conversation
even with almost nothing, cricket, cloud,
because of you I'm talking to crickets, clouds,
confiding in a cat. Everyone says,
Come to your senses, and I do, of you.
Every touch electric, every taste you,
every smell, even burning sugar, every
cry and laugh. Toothpicked samples
at the farmers' market, every melon,
plum, I come undone, undone.
--Dean Young
Gawd. Isn't it just splendid? I wish right now I was in a poetry class so I could be in a discussion about this poem. The first line that really grabs me is "fusillade of bats." But the whole thing is damn brilliant, and what KILLS me is I can't even really SAY WHY for sure! Oy.