Annie Lighthart grew up in a house full of books and teachers. Since there were too many books to dust, to be continually reading was considered a contribution to keeping the house clean.
For Poetry Friday, two poets whose work I have shared before. Time for more!
The Hundred Names of Love
by Annie Lighthart
The children have gone to bed.
We are so tired we could fold ourselves neatly
behind our eyes and sleep mid-word, sleep standing
warm among the creatures in the barn, lean together
and sleep, forgetting each other completely in the velvet,
the forgiveness of that sleep.
Then the one small cry:
one strike of the match-head of sound:
one child’s voice:
read the rest here
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The Sound of It
by Annie Lighthart
Just a piano playing plainly, not even for long,
and yet I suddenly think of fields of timothy
and how a cow and I once studied each other over a fence
while the car ticked and cooled behind me.
When I turned around I was surprised that it had not
sprouted tall grass from its hood, I had been gone
so long. Time passes in crooked ways in some tales,
read the rest here
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Praise
by Kelli Russell Agodon
Find me wild about stir-fry, about red velvet
sofas and the people who sleep inside books
and dream about commas. We are flooded
with forgetfulness, with fallen plum blossoms
misspelling our names on the driveway. Praise
our too many expectations, how we overestimate
read the rest here
**************
Bookseed Studio has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Jan!
10 comments:
Wonderful selection today, Tabatha, as per usual! I especially love this line in Praise:
"how lucky we are
just to be here"
Indeed! And lucky to get to see cute little furry face, Lucy. *swoon*
Annie Lighthart is somehow new to me and I am ABSORBED! Thank you!
Gorgeous poems. Both poets were such a delight to read -- surprising me with turns of phrase and new perspectives. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for "all this exasperating joy."
I love the second Annie Lightfoot poem with the time that runs crooked and leaving younger than they started all wrapped up in the sound of piano and memory of timothy.
"How lovely we are to be foolish and happy" is a fine ending, Tabatha, & I love Lightfoot's poems, her way of showing for us that life is to be taken, right now: "one strike of the match-head of sound". Thank you for your continuing to choose the loveliest of poems for us. Happy weekend!
Thanks Tabatha, for all these richly woven poems. I really love the Kelli Russell Agodon poem, it's delicious—her "people who sleep inside books
and dream about commas." I'll have to read more of her.
Oh, Tabatha, all three of these brought me joy. Thank you, thank you.
❤️
Wow,I could linger in Lighthart's words all day... The Hundred Names of Love reminds me of a teacher's 100th day celebration with her classroom - and all the voices and hands and earnest work that grows in those days. Thank you.
I love the velvet and the forgiveness of the sleep. On days when I'm really exhausted, I am so keenly aware of how lucky I am to have a comfortable bed to fall into at the end of the day. Thanks, Tabatha!
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