Thursday, December 9, 2021

Not root but wick

All of a sudden I looked around my life and realized that the stacks of books by my bed were poetry books and that what I had pinned up on the walls and door of my office were poems and even what I had taped up all around the mirror were poems!
~Annie Lighthart

Thank you, Annie, for giving me permission to share this!

A Cure Against Poisonous Thought
by Annie Lighthart

Believe the world goes on
and this bee bending
in honeysuckle just one
of a mighty nation, golden
beads thrumming
a long invisible thread.

In the green drift of an afternoon,
the body is not root but wick:
the press of light surrounds it.


from Iron String © Airlie Press, 2015.

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Also go to Annie's site to read The Kindness of the Cello and The Second Music

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For your amusement, a bookmark alignment chart. I have done a lot of these, but am prone to chaotic good, true neutral, and lawful evil.

Merely Day by Day has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Cathy!

10 comments:

Irene Latham said...

Ha, I'm the "chaotic good" kind. :) And of course I had to go read the Kindness of the Cello poem. Beautiful, both! Thank you, Tab. xo

Elisabeth said...

What a wonderful poem, and a fun chart! I enjoyed finding myself and my family members on it - one often memorizes the number so I'm looking forward to informing them that they are lawful evil ;-P.

jama said...

Beautiful poem -- a spark of hope in all the bleakness.

Thanks for sharing the fun chart. I am sometimes true neutral but can descend into chaotic evil at times. My husband is a neutral evil which drives me crazy . . . :)

Linda B said...

I love the quote & the idea of spreading light, Tabatha. What fun to see that bookmark alignment chart. We keep a scrapbook at the used bookstore of all the fun things we find in books, often bookmarks, but also often random papers.

Bridget Magee said...

Love this poem, Tabatha. And I confess to being an occasional "chaotic evil" - will you still be my friend? ;)

Mary Lee said...

What does it mean that I am 7/9 of the book alignment personalities? (Maybe I shouldn't even admit that!!) The only category where I have three in a row is chaotic. That seems about right.

LOVE the poem you shared. It balances the angst in Linda B.'s.

Cathy said...

This line: "he body is not root but wick." That one brought great pause.

Michelle Kogan said...

🐝-utiful poem/way to rid ourselves of poisonous thoughts! Love the cello poem and the ending two couplets:
"it is the fire that stays lit all night, giving such tender
light to your changing face. And even when you cannot,

it remembers you as you have always been, and in
that whole song is both the truth and the mending."

Fun book alignment chart, as I’m a bookmark maker I’m prone to true neutral, though I’m also a page memorizer and will also stick anything within reach to mark a page. Thanks Tabatha!

Linda Mitchell said...

Hahahahaha! I am guilty of all bookmark alignments from good to evil. What a beautiful poem by Annie Lightfoot. The plain, simple truth of it gets right into me.

Karen Edmisten said...

Wow, I really love this poem and "The Kindness of the Cello" too. How did I not know about Annie Lighthart? Thanks for introducing me to her, Tabatha.

On the bookmark chart, I am true neutral or chaotic evil. I've been lawful evil, and chaotic good and I think I was once chaotic neutral but leaves don't always hold up over time. :)