A couple of poems and a question today. I attended a good webinar this afternoon, which was a lecture with a chat box on the side. Afterward, I was pondering a person who was unpleasant in the chat. She held herself like a fist: defensive, clenched, angry. It seems like there are quite a few people moving like fists through the world. How are we going to change that? What can a person who feels like that do? I don't have answers. Just wondering.
Choose
by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
The single clenched fist lifted and ready,
Or the open asking hand held out and waiting.
Choose:
For we meet by one or the other.
************
A poem by Menna Elfyn that you can hear in the Welsh here. I may use this as a mentor poem.
Teaching Dylan Thomas’s Muse to speak Welsh
by Menna Elfyn
Once she was a mockery,
the crone in the empty park, old, impotent, hunchbacked —
but today things are different;
I sit beside her,
teaching her words of weight — drawing her to say them after me: Trees, oh how mighty they are, with the might of the Welsh:
and dŵr, see how water purrs
in Welsh when it’s splashed from a fountain.
and then, I teach her two words –
adar and trydar,
the wings and the light;
and now no one will shout harsh words after her because the words will be in her mouth.
I will be the park-keeper, going homewards knowing that she is not homeless;
far away I hear her pronounce:
coed cadarn, cedyrn y cymry, dŵr and adar;
and her words will be
drops flung from a fountain, rising like flying wings.
Now her stick,
spearing dead leaves in the park will turn them, turn herself
into a living green.
Translated by Elin ap Hywel
************
My Juicy Little Universe has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Heidi!
13 comments:
Much to ponder from your post Tabatha, beginning with Carl Sandburg's choice of "clenched fist" or "open asking hand." We are moving through hard times, and they may affect us all in different ways…
I liked the turnabout the woman makes in Menna Elfyn's poem and the softness in her voice as she ends her reading. Thanks for all!
I'm glad I read the poem in English before hearing the Welsh, could follow along then with the feelings of this powerful poem. I would wish everyone would look at others from that open POV, but they do not. As for the woman with the fist, I think it must be fear that drives the anger, from whatever background, believing one's life will be changed is something many cannot abide. I guess you are trying to figure out the answer, too. Thanks, Tabatha for a mirrow to my feelings.
Thank you for your observations and poems, Tabatha. I agree with Linda, I think there is fear behind the fists. Unfortunately, I feel like the fists of fear prevalent right now are misplaced. I suppose we need to be 'the open asking hand held out and waiting' to calm others' fears and coax the fisted hand open. Not an easy task, but more doable when we give thought to these things. :)
Tabatha, thanks for opening our eyes to more wondering about the state of affairs. Clenched fists or open hands: although I choose openness, I have experienced the brunt of clenched fists, angry voices. Obstinance is an alarming stance. When will the world unite for the greater good.
I'd not come across either poem, but the Sandburg poem really struck me today. Thank you so much for sharing that!
What a wonderful quote from Carl Sandburg. And your ponderings to start. Thank-you, dear Tabatha.
Oh, Tabatha. I love the way you are curious and thoughtful after an encounter with a difficult person. This line...it's so beautiful, "no one will shout harsh words after her because the words will be in her mouth." If only we could give doses of poetry like medicine to people like you can.
That second poem seems to me what all good teaching is about. It must be my mission to give my scholars new words to name their experience and their world. Those words should come from poetry, music, and art, as well as from the harsh news of the world, so that they have lots of ways to think about and talk about life. And hopefully, through that learning, they will have ways to unclench or keep unclenched their fists. (literally and metaphorically)
I can't quite explain how reading this, how hearing it in Welsh, has melted me to tears this morning. Perhaps it is the longing to recover someone, ourselves, through words. 💗
Thanks, Tabatha!
So many wonderful comment above. Lately I've been thinking how so much of what we hear now is reaction without trying to understand the emotional dynamics behind it. Feelings of loss and anger have to be understood, put into words maybe, if they are to be dealt with.
That Choose bit is stunning...I was just reading some Sandburg on Friday!
I really appreciate your kind thoughts about that difficult person. The imagery of the closed fist, as opposed to the open hand, is really powerful. I wasn't familiar with either of those poems. The second one, about transformation, is lovely in both its sentiments and its language.
Post a Comment