The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 12/25/07

[BlueIris]

"Poem for My Students"

              "You must learn to unlearn." —Charles Wright

What do you find beautiful
about Albers' series
of whites?  Art teacher asks
the class.  It is the craziest
thing I've ever seen—two slabs
of white, different whites
on a third white, and I am to presume
a beauty, find a Madonna
resting in gold leaf, shadows
of noses, globe of Atlas.

But all I see is a bed
sheet, a linen shirt,
this tablecloth on paper
that is art, a collected
piece, after my own
drawings have been carved
and hummed and viewed.  Hatches
of lines worth the stop
yet too much space left
open, hardly the desire
the pushed aesthetic.

Finally, the spring;
saucer magnolias
bloomed by May, I tried
it out:  sketch about the sides
of magnolias, rough,
square-filled, clip of dogwood
lettering the edge.
My fingers coaled, paper
framed thumbed, palmed
by my messed hand whose
effect was somehow a sudden
occasion, startling, this alien
blossom and blue.

All my sorry harping,
you have utilized the shapes, size
of space with delicacy...
Art teacher and I leaning
over my series, spread
across his desk, beetle sculptures,
butterflies, silver coated, tacked 
to the wall.  Examining with pins,
toothpicks, my drawings
in sky-lit studio, I see
my face, my walk in the bluefish,
dogwood snippet, the trilobite
chalking and revel
in the dazzle of progress.

—Suzanne Fisher

[DarkTirade]

1. Christmas kick. :)

[RainDog]

2. and one for you-

The Stolen Child

by Wm Butler Yeats

WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scare could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

[BlueIris]

3. Thanks. I love Yeats. nt

[BlueIris]

4. Kick.

[BlueIris]

5. Kick.

[BlueIris]

6. Kick.