Tomorrow's Poetry Friday, the first one of the school year! We're finishing our first week with kids. It's gone pretty well, all things considered.
One of the exciting things that happened this week was that I received Irene Latham's National Poetry Month postcard! This means it only took four months to wend its way to Uganda. I looked up my thank you note to her for the NPM postcard from 2023 and found that it took six months last year, arriving on November 9th. It's a National Poetry Month miracle, my friends!
Today I'd like to share a poem that I got recently in the Poets.org Poem-a-Day email. It's called "When it Really is Just the Wind, and Not a Furious Vexation," by Kyle Tran Myhre. It's hard to excerpt it, but I'm going to share the last four stanzas. You can read the whole thing here, and I recommend reading the whole thing, for sure!
So here's the end:
I am alive, it is because of other people. And I
don’t always like them, but I love them. In every
universe in which I am alive, it is less because I
could fight, and more because I could
forgive. Because I could cooperate. Because
I could apologize. Because I could dance. Because
I could grow pumpkins in my backyard and leave
them at my neighbor’s door, asking for nothing in
return. In every universe in which I am alive, I am
holding: a first aid kit, a solar panel, a sleeping
cat. Never a rusty battle ax or rocket launcher—
sure, maybe sometimes a chainsaw, but only for
firewood. I am holding: a cooking pot, a teddy bear,
a photo album, a basketball, a bouquet of flowers.
Survival is not a fortress. It is a garden.
Survival is not a siren. It is a symphony. And
yeah, we fight for it sometimes, but survival is not
the fight. It is the healing after: the soft hum of
someone you trust applying the bandage, the
feeling of falling asleep in a safe place.
(from "When it Really is Just the Wind, and Not a Furious Vexation," by Kyle Tran Myhre, here.)
So good, right? I'm glad to be holding, instead of "a rusty battle ax or rocket launcher": a white board marker, a French textbook, a dishcloth, a pair of binoculars, a feather. "Survival is not a siren. It is a symphony."
(P.S. That last stanza made me think of Emily St. John Mandel's novel Station Eleven, of which I wrote here in 2016, "'Twenty years after the end of air travel,' we meet the Traveling Symphony, a company of actors and musicians who travel around the ruined United States in horse-drawn caravans performing Shakespeare and various types of music, because 'survival is insufficient.' It's about connections, the power of the past, and healing. 'What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still such beauty.'")
Janice is hosting this week's roundup.
10 comments:
Best wishes for a superb school year, Ruth. I happened to see your post arrive before I go to the bookstore to work. The poem gives such hope for all that we hold, like you, that group of things that 'are' your life! Love reading about the postcards, too!
I hope you have a wonderful school year! Thanks for sharing that poem and the truth that we are here and alive because of our neighbors. (I'm paraphrasing) It's profound to think about.
Ruth, you beat me to this poem! I bookmarked it recently, too — so good! Thanks for sharing it. Station Eleven is one of my favorite books. And wow on the postcards' travel times!
What a beautiful poem! Thank you for sharing that. It inspires me to ask myself what I'm holding, and to reflect on how we are connected to those around us.
Thanks for sharing the poem, Ruth! I agree with Elisabeth about being inspired to think about what I am holding. Best wishes for a wonderful school year!
survival is not
the fight. It is the healing after: the soft hum of
someone you trust applying the bandage, the
feeling of falling asleep in a safe place.
💕
Love this SO much. Thanks for the opportunity to read it again. Instead of "a rusty battle ax or rocket launcher" I will be holding a mug of tea, a black swallowtail chrysalis on a stick inside a jar, a sewing kit for both mending and embellishment.
Ruth, i appreciate the deep read into the poem you shared.I walk away with these lines, "Survival is not a siren. It is a symphony." Best of luck with your new school year and the children who receive your fine tutelage.
Oh gosh, Ruth, did I need this poem right now! I am holding sea salt and sourdough, yesterday's dinner napkin, the paw of a scaredy-dog afraid of the wind, and hope for healing and humility when I am 90 years old.
Thanks for encouraging us to read the entire poem. It's new to me, filled with such wisdom that we need in our crazy times.
I love these lines:
"more because I could
forgive. Because I could cooperate. Because
I could apologize. Because I could dance. Because
I could grow pumpkins in my backyard and leave
them at my neighbor’s door, asking for nothing in
return." Powerful words for our time.
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