~Stacia Tauscher
Poet Jim Harrison says "Time...can tip us upside down" and I think poetry can do that, too. Sending out a thank you to all of you who tip me upside down on a regular basis!
Seven in the Woods
by Jim Harrison
Am I as old as I am?
Maybe not. Time is a mystery
that can tip us upside down.
Yesterday I was seven in the woods,
a bandage covering my blind eye,
in a bedroll Mother made me
so I could sleep out in the woods...
read the rest here
****************
butterfly who moves like a yawn
Teddy Roosevelt Island
Transitory Mitzvah
by Sarah Matthes
In the subway car, a mystery of proximity: a yawn
passing from mouth to mouth,
across a line of seated strangers,
in perfect order. I watched it moving
like a secret through a row of children,
washing toward me as each person opened
their lips to swallow it up
and then, in unbroken revolution,
give it away....
read the rest here
****************
Reflections on the Teche has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Margaret!
Tabatha, your poems you chose for today's PF are ones that make me pause and think. Time moves quickly when we hope for a slow passage. I need to really reflect on the thought that time... can tip us upside down! Thanks for the time to be quiet to ponder the beauty of the words.
ReplyDeleteOh, that swift passage of fleeting time. It tips (and trips!) me up, so often. I think poetry (and PF friends) help me find my feet and tip me right way up again. :)
ReplyDeletePoetry can definitely tip me upside down! In fact, those are my favorite poems. :) Thank you, dear Tab. xo
ReplyDeleteTabatha, thank you for the gifts of these poems today. I enjoyed both of them, as well as the yawn-like butterfly. I especially enjoyed the Harrison poem and this image:
ReplyDelete"A chickadee
landed on my bare toe, so light
she wasn't believable."
I have to tell you, when I read Sarah Matthes' poem I yawned.)
Denise, I yawned too!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing these poems, Tabitha... I especially related to Jim Morrison's. Beautiful, thoughtful, painted a perfect picture. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteOh, my...that idea of time turning one upside down. Yes, it's true. At first, I was so wowed by the poem I thought I'd save it for my students. But, they are young. They haven't been tipped yet. It's really a sweet to save for later. But then, that poem about the yawn spreading like a secret. Wow! What an amazing observation with so much we can see inside that subway car. What humanity. I loved that poem. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteWisdom in poems makes me think again, "It is the burden of life to be many ages
ReplyDeletewithout seeing the end of time." As I approach the 60th, this is becoming a burden. Thanks for your offerings today.
I'm just going to disagree with Jim Harrison. I don't see it as a burden "to be many ages without seeing the end of time." I see it as a gift.
ReplyDeleteBut when that yawn skipped over the poet, I did wonder if it's a burden to be a keen observer...
I could almost feel the summer heat from the yawning wings of the butterfly. Beautiful video and poem choice!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wodnerful pair of poems, Tabatha - both new to me and still being digested. That quote, though, really took my breath away (before the yawn did the same: "We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today."
ReplyDeleteSoooooooo true! I a going to print this and use it with my Early childhood student teachers.
Bundles of richness here Tabatha, I like being tipped "upside down" by time, maybe even sideways or diagonally—and by Jim Harrison's poem.
ReplyDeleteOh that yawn, I think it time-traveled to me… thanks for all!
Wow, these are both so beautiful, Tabatha! I love the final lines of the first one:
ReplyDeleteIt is the burden of life to be many ages
without seeing the end of time.
I know this feeling so well. :)
And the second poem — the vision of the wave of that yawn and what it means, or might mean. I loved it.
Thank you for this beauty today!