“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way… As a man is, so he sees.”
Quelle: William Blake’s Most Beautiful Letter: A Timeless Defense of the Imagination and the Creative Spirit
Kategorie: Poetry
Poem: „And So We All Fall Down“ by Richard Blanco
And So We All Fall Down
By Richard Blanco
{after and for Anselm Kiefer’s installation:
Steigend steigend sinke nieder
(rising, rising, falling down), 2009-2012}
And so the hunks of pavement heaved and set
before us are every road we’ve tried, and those
we wish we had, and those we will, and those
we never will, or those that’ll dead-end when
our empire ends. And so let our debris to be
reassembled as tenderly as these curated bits
of rubble letting us see how chaos yields order,
and order chaos. And so let our nation’s faces
be these boulders like tiny, bruised moons out
or orbit, and yet enduring, still spinning across
the shiny gallery floor, despite the brutal love
of the universe and brutal love for our country.
And so let us believe we won’t simply end like
the speck of a star that will explode as quietly
as a poem whispered above our rooftops into
a black hole into the black night. And so let us
believe there is still eternity even in our ruin,
like this art made out of these remains, made
more alive by destruction. And so all the dead
stalks of these sunflowers embalmed with paint
and fixed by our imagination dangling forever
from the ceiling like acrobats that’ll never fall.
And so the hope in what they let us hope: that
our ideals won’t all disappear, that some trace
of what we have believed must endure beyond
our decay, beyond entropy’s law, assuring us
we’ll live on, even after our inevitable dissolve.
Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet and lawyer. He created the Million Book Project, an initiative to curate microlibraries and install them in prisons across the country. His latest collection of poetry, “Felon,” explores the post-incarceration experience. In 2019, he won a National Magazine Award in Essays and Criticism for his article in The Times Magazine about his journey from teenage carjacker to aspiring lawyer. Richard Blanco is a poet whose latest collection is “How to Love a Country” (Beacon Press, 2019). In 2013, he served as the poet for Barack Obama’s second inauguration.
Arlo Parks – Collapsed in Sunbeams | ttt – titel, thesen, temperamente
Sie klingt lebensklug als hätte sie alles bereits erlebt. So singt Arlo Parks etwa vom „Black Dog“ – Winstons Churchills Codewort für seine Depressionen: Dabei ist sie gerade mal 20. Die BBC feiert Parks schon als Pop-Sensation des Jahres.
Quelle: Arlo Parks – Collapsed in Sunbeams | ttt – titel, thesen, temperamente
The Best William Carlos Williams Poems Everyone Should Read — Interesting Literature
The best poems by William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) was a prolific American poet, so picking just ten of his best poems by way of introduction to his work is always going to be a difficult task. However, below we introduce ten of Williams’s best-known and, we believe, […] The post The Best…
The Best William Carlos Williams Poems Everyone Should Read — Interesting Literature
10 of the Best Poems about Books and Reading — Interesting Literature
In a previous post, we offered five poems about writing poetry; now, it’s the turn of reading and books. Poets have often written about the act of reading books, so here are ten of the very best poems about books and reading. Anne Bradstreet, ‘The Author to Her Book’. ‘Thou […] The post 10 of…
10 of the Best Poems about Books and Reading — Interesting Literature
Loss is an Ocean — Brave & Reckless
I stand on the shore of an ocean named loss my eyes always drawn to the horizon scanning encroaching fog for the outlines of those I have loved of those I have lost how many empty shapes have been etched on my soul like shadow like photographic negatives of those who have been torn away […]
Loss is an Ocean — Brave & Reckless
Transference – Christine Bolton — Brave & Reckless
The sky freckled with tangerine clouds The sun’s last breath of the day The water glittered with diamonds and shadows grew long as the evening turned grey Through the looking glass of twilight astral forms came into view and under the stars we lay Christine Bolton – Poetry for Healing © You can read more […]
Transference – Christine Bolton — Brave & Reckless
Lifesaving Poems: C. P. Cavafy’s ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’ — Anthony Wilson
Waiting for the Barbarians What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are due here today. Why isn’t anything going on in the senate? Why are the senators sitting there without legislating? Because the barbarians are coming today. What’s the point of senators making laws now? Once the barbarians are […]
via Lifesaving Poems: C. P. Cavafy’s ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’ — Anthony Wilson
Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem By Dr. Maya Angelou
In her powerful, inspiriting poem “Amazing Peace,” Maya Angelou speaks of Christmas as “the halting of hate time.” Though she wrote the poem especially for the White House Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony back in 2005, her words are even more relevant today. How can we look “beyond complexion and see community”?
This year, and in all the years to come, let us wholeheartedly embrace the Peace of Christmas — each to each, with kindness, comfort, and compassion, lighting the way for others with the golden rule as our guiding principle. A simple tenet, yet profound and far reaching because we have the power to practice it every single day. Even when faced with the incomprehensible, we must continue to believe in the goodness of humanity. If we stand together, love, the strongest emotion a human being is capable of experiencing, will prevail.
*
„Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.
Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey and threatening.
We question ourselves.
What have we done to so affront nature?
We worry God.
Are you there? Are you there really?
Does the covenant you made with us still hold?
Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.
The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,
Come the way of friendship.
It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Flood waters recede into memory.
Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us
As we make our way to higher ground.
Hope is born again in the faces of children
It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.
In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now. It is louder.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.
We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.
We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.
Peace.
Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you, to stay a while with us.
So we may learn by your shimmering light
How to look beyond complexion and see community.
It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.
On this platform of peace, we can create a language
To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.
At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ
Into the great religions of the world.
We jubilate the precious advent of trust.
We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope.
All the earth’s tribes loosen their voices
To celebrate the promise of Peace.
We, Angels and Mortal’s, Believers and Non-Believers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.
Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.“
Winter Grace
There is this poem by Patricia Fargnoli, which actually captures what I try to touch upon in my photos, in a wonderful way. Listen to this: Winter Grace by Patricia Fargnoli If you have seen the snow under the lamppost piled up like a white beaver hat on the picnic table or somewhere slowly falling into […]