(Belated) NPM: Lemons

The last post for National Poetry Month. I thought about posting something a little more exuberant, or peppy, but I am just exhausted! From life! So here's the last poem.

Lemons

Lemonade is the cover up story
they write over the sour moments.
They collect a basket of trouble;
they compress it, condense it,
and they sweeten it with sugar
but I swear, it still tastes like lemon.
And that bitter citrus still
burns on the way down
while the sugar no longer
knows its own flavor..
So when life drops lemons
into my open hands
I slice it up and put it in my tea.
I take a big gulp and say,
This is sour, or
This is sweet
and I won’t be bitter
because I at least
know the difference.

NPM: Foxes, Volume 2

In my search for fox poems I stumbled across two about a "fox wife." I didn't fall in love with either of them, and didn't feel they were appropriate to post here, so I didn't share them on this blog. I will, however, give you links to them for the sake of reference. This one is provides lovely imagery, and its story is engaging, but I was frustrated by the vaguely changing perspectives. The voice was also exasperatingly simple. This one (second poem/picture down) was written in response to a painting, which I find seriously awesome and would like to try myself. However, again, the voice and perspectives were frustrating.

But considering my real goal for National Poetry Month, which is to write a poem a day, I'm not too upset about being unsatisfied by the fox wife poems. I just get to write my own. I get to write one that won't frustrate me, or exasperate me. It will mean something. So, here it is. You can say you love it, or hate it. I don't care. This one's for me.


The Fox Wife

At my human heart's dusk
I was a nameless creature,
ravaged by regret and
shaken with shame.
A dismayed soul coiled,
heavily armored to deflect
with savage fangs and claws
all the world's darkest hunters.

I howled for the sun setting,
I could never stop fighting.
I would escape.
I always find a way.

Still they would call me a thief
for stealing time or light
and judge my wounded words
as a beast's deception.
I was like a burning brush
of sun before the twilight,
the last spirited sign of life
before night captures day.
I would outrun the hunter's arrows
and outshine the evening sky,
until overwhelmed by my
solitary struggle, I was caught
by the light of the moon.

I howled for the sun setting,
I could never stop fighting.
I would escape.
I always find a way.

But you would see the animal
and you would find me beautiful,
you would hold my sunset fur
to your skin and call me fox.
And you would see the fighter,
you would find a way with me,
you would hold my wildness
to your heart and call me wife.

NPM: Foxes, Volume 1

In my perpetual search for the perfect poems to share (and not just to write), I've found a depressing lack of poems about foxes. Because I just freaking love foxes. Now, before you roll your eyes and tell me that I'm just a dumb hipster obsessed with foxes, give me some credit. I've always loved foxes--okay, and cows and elephants and robins. Typically I like them for absolutely no reason, I just think they're visually inspiring, or just stinkin' adorable. I used to like foxes for no reason but now I like them for several reasons. (And none of them have anything to do with that unmentionable song.)

I'll give you just one reason: people think foxes are sneaky, clever, and sometimes "deceitful." The truth is that foxes are creative, and they always find a way to survive. As a Christian, I don't necessarily condone "deceit" to get your way, or value cleverness above compassion... but as a person who has had her share of suffering, and a person who thrives on creativity, I resonate with the idea of creative survival tactics.

So I like foxes for a reason, and I wanted to find some fox poems, and I just narrowly succeeded. Most of the fox poems I found were about hunting foxes, or weren't really about foxes at all. But I'm three days behind, so I'll share a few.

This first one (for 4/26/14) is by Ted Hughes, British poet laureate and husband of the late Sylvia Plath. I could let you figure it out for yourself, but I have to admit (and therefore give away) the wonderful and slightly eerie truth behind this poem. It's a poem about writing poems. I love it. If you click here you can actually listen to Ted Hughes reading it, and it is beautiful.

The Thought Fox

I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock’s loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.


This next poem (for 4/27/14) is by Jane Hirshfield. I don't know much about this poet, although I do particularly enjoy her poem 'For What Binds Us.' She also wrote this somewhat haunting poem about foxes.

Three Foxes by the Edge of the Field at Twilight

One ran,
her nose to the ground,
a rusty shadow
neither hunting nor playing.

One stood; sat; lay down; stood again.

One never moved,
except to turn her head a little as we walked.

Finally we drew too close,
and they vanished.
The woods took them back as if they had never been.

I wish I had thought to put my face to the grass.

But we kept walking,
speaking as strangers do when becoming friends.

There is more and more I tell no one,
strangers nor loves.
This slips into the heart
without hurry, as if it had never been.

And yet, among the trees, something has changed.

Something looks back from the trees,
and knows me for who I am.


For today's poem.... one from me, about foxes. Well, just one fox. I have another one coming tomorrow, one longer and possibly more fantastic, but I'm tired.


Driving Alone Through Hawthorn

In solitary darkness
the stationary moon
sweeps silklike over
your fur, swinging light
over your swift, silent paws.
You see me, I see you
and your shining eyes.
All around you the world
shimmers and shivers
because you are a red
streak against silver
and then you are gone.

NPM: Sun Tea

Sun Tea

My jar is too big for my windowsill;
my heart is too big for my sleeve.
So I put on a dress that
shows off my shoulders,
put my tea in the sun
before the day grew colder
and I'm happier than you'd believe.

NPM: NPM

Some snark today. I need a nap.

NPM

My soul speaks in volumes
because today I say it must.
My paintbrush fingers rust,
my notebooks turn to dust.
Don't judge me.

Sometimes I write after work
but today I'm tired before.
My literary muscle is sore,
I can't force myself to give more.
Don't ask me.

NPM: Practice

A poem written in the moment, for my husband, this 23rd day of March  April. National Poetry Month is quickly ending. I feel like it was swept away from me, and it seems like it lasted so much longer last year. I also believe I'm challenging myself with a higher quantity of "rhyming" poems this year, which is something I can be a little proud of. Joey probably won't read this poem (because he hardly ever reads my blog) but if you read it and you think it's awesome, go pester him on Facebook and tell him to read it. :)

Practice.

From the open bedroom door,

hum my husband's hands at his guitar,

deep and a little low,

soft and a little high,

and the sound drifts into me 

not too shallow, not too far.

My fingers at the keys here,

hands hard at work but heart hearing,

breathing deep and low,

feeling soft and high,

and patience grows within me

where anxiety left a clearing.

We will live from wall to wall,

hearth to hearth and heart to heart,

loving deep and singing low,

speaking soft and laughing high,

and time will weave inside us

until we can't be told apart.

NPM: At home.

4/20/14
Carry Me Up

When the storm overcomes me,
when with the wind I bend,
when lightning strikes my heart
and thunder is my friend
carry me up,
carry me up to you.

When the stillness is too much,
when the silence is at hand,
when my patience won't persist
and I feel I cannot stand
carry me up,
carry me up to you.

When my soul is heavy,
when my spirit stops its sighs,
when my heart gives way
and that drumbeat dies
carry me up,
carry me up to you.


4/21/14
Teababy

Teababies drink tea
where they're wandering at
in the morning dew
with wide white hats.
Teababies drink tea
when the sun comes up
and they sip up their hours
from chippy coffee cups.
They drink with straws
from tiny paper glasses
and from shiny bottles
sittin in the tall grasses.
Teababies drink tea
when the moon hangs down
and they gulp from the sky
when stars come around.
They drink away trouble
and drink away care
because a teababy knows
all the world some tea can bear.


4/22/14
Big Paper

For an artist the blank page can seem
quite in surmountable, untouchable.
The empty white sheet is both
power and weakness.
It is the whole day looming ahead,
all work and responsibility and
convoluted obligations,
or the trouble to be made--
which could be daunting, or exhilarating
but I am dauntless, and always
in the middle of an exhilaration.
And you can cut it up into small pieces
or paint the entire sheet
with one color, if that pleases you,
and I suppose that's where
an artist gets satisfaction.
God gives out the big paper
but he also hands you the brush.