Poetry Friday: Ode to the Onion

 Van Gogh, Still Life with a Plate of Onions

I always do odes with my eighth graders around Thanksgiving.  This one seems fitting, since several of the delicious dishes today contained onions.  I love Neruda's focus on ordinary things, and the way he sees the extraordinary in them.  Perfect for Thanksgiving, when we look at our blessings with more grateful eyes than we do on other days. 


Ode to the Onion
Pablo Neruda, tr. George Schade

Onion
luminous flask,
your beauty formed
petal by petal,
crystal scales expanded you
and in the secrecy of the dark earth
your belly grey round with dew.
Under the earth
the miracle
happened
and when your clumsy
green stem appeared.
and your leaves were born
like swords
in the garden.
the earth heaped up her power
showing your naked transparency.
and as the remote sea
in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite
duplicated the magnolia.
So did the earth
make you,
onion,
clear as a planet,
and destined
to shine,
constant constellation
round case of water.
upon
the table
of the poor.
Generously
you undo
your globe of freshness
in the fervent consummation
of the cooking pot
and the crystal shred
in the flaming heat of the oil
is transformed into a curled golden feather.

Then, too, I will recall how fertile
is your influence
on the love of the salad,
and it seems that the sky contributes
by giving you the shape of hailstones
to celebrate our chopped brightness
on the hemispheres of a tomato.
But within reach
of the hands if the common people,
sprinkled with oil.
dusted
with bit of salt,
you kill the hunger
of the day laborer on his hard path.

Star of the poor,
fairy godmother
wrapped
in delicate
paper, you rise from the ground
eternal, whole, pure
like an astral seed.
and when the kitchen knife
cuts you, here arises
the only tear
without sorrow.

You make us cry without hurting us.
I have praised everything that exists,
but to me, onion, you are
more beautiful than a bird
of dazzling feathers,
you are to my eyes
a heavenly globe, a platinum goblet,
an unmoving dance
of the snowy anemone.

and the fragrance of the earth lives
in your crystalline nature.


Take a look at the post-Thanksgiving roundup here.  

Poetry Friday: Merry Autumn

I am planning to read this one with my seventh graders next week.  I thought they'd like it because we read a whole slew of mournful November poems, and this one is way more cheerful.  In fact, Dunbar mocks the idea that autumn is sad.  The poem starts:

Merry Autumn
Paul Laurence Dunbar

It's all a farce,—these tales they tell 

About the breezes sighing,

And moans astir o'er field and dell,

Because the year is dying. 



And it ends like this:


Don't talk to me of solemn days

In autumn's time of splendor, 

Because the sun shows fewer rays, 

And these grow slant and slender. 



Why, it's the climax of the year,— 

The highest time of living!— 

Till naturally its bursting cheer 

Just melts into thanksgiving.



 You can read the whole poem here.

I'm really looking forward to next week just melting into Thanksgiving.  Over at Write. Sketch. Repeat., Katya is hosting a Thanksgiving feast and Poetry Friday roundup.  Head on over to see what she is serving here!

Poetry Friday: Today I am a Small Blue Thing

Today I am a small blue thing
Like a marble or an eye
With my knees against my mouth
I am perfectly round
I am watching you

I am cold against your skin
You are perfectly reflected
I am lost inside your pocket
I am lost against your fingers
I am falling down the stairs
I am skipping on the sidewalk
I am thrown against the sky
I am raining down in pieces
I am scattering like light
Scattering like light
Scattering like light

Today I am a small blue thing
Made of China, made of glass
I am cool and smooth and curious, I never blink
I am turning in your hand
Turning in your hand

I am cold against your skin
You are perfectly reflected
I am lost inside your pocket
I am lost against your fingers
I am falling down the stairs
I am skipping on the sidewalk
I am thrown against the sky
I am raining down in pieces
I am scattering like light
Scattering like light
Scattering like light

Today I am a small blue thing
Like a marble or an eye
I am cool and smooth and curious, I never blink
I am turning in your hand
Turning in your hand
Turning in your hand
Small blue thing
Turning in your hand
Turning in your hand

Suzanne Vega

Here's today's roundup, hosted by Jama.   

Poetry Friday: Thinking About Thoreau

I have been writing a poem every day for the month of November, and maybe at some point I'll share more of what I've written (on Monday I posted this in honor of Pajama Day), but for today, I want to show you the best poem I read this week, by my friend Jessica Stock.  She blogs at One Wild and Precious Life about art, reading, motherhood, homeschooling, and faith.  I am always so excited when I see that she has posted something; it's always worth reading.  This week she was thinking about Thoreau as she recovered from her daughter's sixth birthday party.  Thanks, Jess, for letting me share your poem!

thinking about Thoreau at the end of the sixth birthday party

I cannot take Thoreau seriously since I learned his mother did his laundry
simplify simplify: a nice thought but somebody or your mom must wash your underwear
Thoreau lived deliberately and did not ever
so far as I am aware
separate the whites or
deal with his child's civil disobedience or
hear his name called up his spine
so persistently that he might consider ducking into the coat closet

Did you, Thoreau, ever plan a six year old's birthday party
or contemplate food allergies
crafts
test the recipe for chocolate cake with chocolate frosting
or advance confidently in the direction of the store for maraschino cherries- a five year old's only request?
Details Details

Did you, Thoreau, ever see your daughter so drunk on delight and red40
at the end of her sixth birthday party?

Now watch as I take this glass of wine to the bath
And read the Atlantic and scrub my poor feet with sugar

No one, not even Thoreau, had such delicious solitude
Not even Thoreau had such smooth feet

Jessica Stock



Today's roundup is hosted by Diane at Random Noodling.  Happy Poetry Friday!

Pajama Day

I teach the word "infer" to the seventh graders,
who are dressed in their pajamas.
"If you look around today," I explain,
"You can infer from what people are wearing
That it's Pajama Day."

You can infer from what I am wearing, too,
That it is Pajama Day. 
My purple plaid drawstring pants
My oversized school T-shirt from two sports seasons ago
My socks and running shoes.

Dressed in my pajamas,
I attempt to keep order
Among children in bathrobes
Children with stuffed animals
Children in slippers,
And perhaps most difficult of all,
Those who forgot to dress up.

Not to worry - it's only Monday.
Four more days of costumed mayhem left in Spirit Week.
You can infer from my martyred sigh
Exactly how I feel about that.

November Project

I decided this year to take on a writing project a little different from the last couple of Novembers, when I have attempted to post on my blog each day of the month.  This year, I'm writing a poem each day.  At least, I'm trying.  I've done three poems so far, but the one for November 1st was already cheating a little, since it was one I had been working on for a couple of weeks.  And tomorrow makes the first day of November that I will go to work, since Friday was a holiday.  It's one thing to write on days off, and it's another to keep it up on work days. 

It remains to be seen whether I'll post some or any of my poems.  But this project is a reminder that I really need to write more.  Not so I can check it off my to-do list, but because I feel better when I do.  Writing helps me to arrange at least some of the stuff in my head.  Writing is a bit like exercising; I sometimes have to force myself to do both, but I can't deny the good effects both have on me when I follow through.  And for writing, that seems to be true whether or not I end up liking what I write. 

Poetry Friday: Catch a Body

I am having a hard time excerpting this poem; it's short, so follow the link and read the whole thing.  Ilse Bendorf takes exception to Holden Caulfield's advice: "Don't ever tell anybody anything."  She moves on to describing some things we should say, like

if
your mother looks radiant in violet
you should tell her, or when a juvenile
sparrow thrashes its wings in dustpiles
and reminds you of a lover’s eyelashes,
you should say so

but then she explains how we are boats, but also islands, but also pirates...

This is a wonderful poem, given to me by my daughter; please just go here and read the whole thing, OK?  And when you get done, go here, to Linda's home at Teacher Dance, and see what everyone else has for today.

As for me, I have the day off,  All Saints' Day, and although I have a stack of grading to do, I also plan to read some poetry today, and who knows?  Maybe I'll even write some.  Happy Poetry Friday!