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Monday, December 07, 2009

Monday Poetry Stretch - It's About Time

I still find it hard to believe that we are rushing headlong towards the end of the year. I have papers to grade, cookies to bake, packages to mail, cards to send, and more. I am counting the days until my mom arrives (2!), grades are due (8 and 10 respectively), my sister's birthday (13), and public schools close for winter break (11).

In the midst of this year-end chaos, I am acutely aware of time, how little I have and how much I need. So, for this week's stretch I propose we write about time, in any form, in any of it's incarnations. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

16 comments:

  1. FIRST NIGHT HOME
    (for Marin, days after)
    By Steven Withrow

    Your first night home
    I couldn't sleep, it was like
    a small moon had drifted
    through an open window
    and settled in our room,
    complicating gravity.
    For weeks we let you
    doze off in your swing,
    rock-a-bye, lullaby,
    pretty pendulum baby
    .
    One night I napped
    on the couch near you,
    dreaming to the click
    of your metronome seat.
    When I woke the TV clock
    told a strange time.
    I blundered off the blanket,
    sat up waiting, fearful
    you'd stopped breathing.
    But you scrunched your nose
    and fenced your fist
    and gravity resumed
    and the new moon grew
    and turned the earth
    and turned the earth
    and turned the earth
    to welcome you.




    ©2009 by Steven Withrow

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  2. That's lovely, Steven.

    Wow - I'm going to be hearing Jim Croce the whole time I work on this one, Tricia ("If I could hold time in a bottle....") Thanks in advance for that. Will post as soon as I've got something.

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  3. Well done, Steven. I love your poem.


    Tricia,

    I wrote a time poem in my head while taking my shower this morning. I think I need to tweak it a bit in places before it's ready for posting.

    Hope you had a grand Thanksgiving!

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  4. That poem is lovely, Steven. I am cheating this week and posting a poem I wrote a few months ago. This theme made me think of it immediately. This is actually the first poem I had written in a very long time and was largely inspired by the poetry stretches here that I was, at the time, still too nervous about attempting.

    6:45 a.m.

    I wake when the sun pries through the curtain gap
    to unmask me in the quiet and not-quite dark.
    Fifteen minutes before everyone is out of bed
    and milling around the kitchen
    and looking for a banana or a signature or a hug or a cup of coffee.
    Fifteen minutes, and I am willing
    my dreams to stay in my head,
    hands pressed over eyes:
    the adventurous dreams
    where the fate of the world
    lies on my capable shoulders
    in a thousand different places
    plus one.
    the peaceful dreams
    where there is only one small and quiet thing,
    Fifteen minutes to remember things of importance
    and things of no importance
    at all.

    Kneading hands and feet
    willing wrists, ankles back to life,
    words thunder past,
    spiral out my ears,
    form a cloud around my still-pillowed head.
    make breakfast make a phone call make noise make love
    make a nuisance of yourself
    make hay while the sun shines
    pack lunch pack a bag pack a snack for later
    back to work back to back back in the USSR on the radio
    turn it up turn it down turn left at the second light turn around
    and turn around and turn around again but don’t turn back
    Definitely not back.
    Drive to work drive to the store drive yourself to distraction

    Where was I going?

    Once upon a time,
    in spring I would hurl back the covers
    my feet hitting the floor
    before my eyes were open
    running to grab the world and
    a box of cereal that might,
    if I were really lucky,
    hold a prize like a ring or a car or a million dollars or a pony.
    The early bird always did get the worm in the spring.
    At least it did then.
    In winter, I am less agile.
    But still, I share a morning dance in the bathroom
    with my four-year-old self
    and a toothbrush microphone,
    surprised at the face staring back from somewhere past forty
    while snow falls past the window over my shoulder
    and snow falls past the window past my ear
    and snow falls past the window
    too fast
    and too deep
    to measure.

    take a memo take an aspirin take a number take your time
    take the dog for a walk take the money and run
    take a message for someone too busy to answer the phone
    take five take a seat take a bath take a hike
    take something you need
    take it now take it now take it.

    Then give it away.

    Or,
    maybe,
    save it for later.
    Later, when you remember:

    Where was I going?

    And you remember:

    the way to get there is
    to put your feet on the floor
    one
    at
    a
    time.
    The rest?
    It will be carried along
    on the tide of mornings.
    The sun is up.
    And so are you.

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  5. The Extra Five Days

    Three hundred sixty degrees in a circle
    any circle
    a circle the size of my eye
    a circle the size of the sun

    Three hundred sixty-five days in a year
    any year
    any year except a leap year
    a year like the year I was born

    Five degrees, five days difference
    or maybe six
    five nights of sleeping, five days of being,
    doing and being and counting

    I come around
    and come around
    and come around and leap

    and somehow the wheel of my year
    keeps five days ahead of a circle

    ~Heidi Mordhorst

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  6. These are so good! Here's mine.

    Tracks

    Something passed this way,
    blurring the snow with its feet.
    The tracks are dotted
    with scraps—bits of tinsel,
    gift wrap, even the curved
    gold shards of a broken
    ornament like a cracked sun.

    The footprints are shadows,
    blues eddying toward
    a great door made of stone
    that ends the white sameness.

    It is colder than snow
    to the touch, and heavy,
    but I drag it open,
    scraping the shape
    of a single wing before
    I walk into next year.

    --Kate Coombs (Book Aunt), 2009

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  7. SPACE AND TIME IN MIND

    Space and time balance their beauty in my mind.

    Ocean waves I'm watching intently
    plan their crests and break upon the beach where God and I are mapping our future.

    Sunlight rests upon our world oblivious to its wars and so for a time I forget why we fight.

    Treasured moments suspend the universe in space and give labourers precious time to heal.

    Generous portions of distance and duration equalise within my mind as the story of life unfolds.

    I'm here to help I suppose,
    I'll find a way before I die
    To serve the Lord with space and time in mind.

    [Michael Coldham-Fussell, copyright 2009]

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  8. Father Time

    When once begun
    And on his own,
    He stopped for none
    And ran alone.

    Time took his time.
    Days’ ends ahead
    Left nights to climb
    Into Time’s bed.

    The watch and clock
    We’ve come to know—
    Tick-tock, tick-tock—
    Precisely show

    That Time this time
    Should take a bow,
    Still in his prime—
    The here and now.

    The hour survives,
    The minute ends.
    Time alters lives
    That time transcends.

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  9. My poem this week was inspired by watching my son.

    On the day you joined this world
    sand in the hourglass of life
    began to drop
    to the empty bottom,
    stacking grain upon grain
    until a small hill emerged.

    That hill grows still and,
    unable to flip the glass
    (oh how I wish I could!),
    I long to narrow the neck,
    slow the march of time
    that steals innocence and
    propels you to adulthood.

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  10. I'm loving the poems this week! Here's mine:
    I want to write a manifesto about time.
    I will scrawl it, bright red, on a dusty concrete wall
    While sirens sing in the distance.

    I’ve done my time in the trenches
    Labor. Dirty diapers. Mommy and Me. PTC.
    All the tedious seconds buzzing around me.
    I had fun, but time flies.

    I want to write a manifesto about time.
    I will shout it on a busy corner
    While people hurry past, eyes sliding past me.

    Time is money
    And I want to spend some on myself.
    I want to indulge myself with hours and hours of poetry.
    I want to squander minutes,
    Let them run through my fingers and onto the page.

    I want to write a manifesto about time.
    I will chant it with a crowd of protesters
    While we march toward the Capitol.

    Ah, but time marches, too.
    It has marched me past
    Baby teeth and first days of school
    And popsicle stick art projects
    Even when I have wanted to stand still.

    I want to write a manifesto about time.
    I will whisper it over you
    While you sleep in your quilted cave.

    Soon enough, I will have time on my hands.
    Until then, I can stitch out some time for myself.
    I can hide it in the corners of my day,
    So that it won’t take away from
    The best of times:
    The time I spend with you.

    Easter

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  11. Tricia--

    Not sure my following poem fits into the poetry "time" theme stretch this week.

    Here's a version of a poem I wrote many years ago. It's about my favorite time of the day when my daughter was little. Sara would sit on my lap on the red-cushioned rocking chair in an alcove of my bedroom as I read to her from her favorite picture books. I miss those times.


    A Book and a Chair

    A book and a chair
    Are nice to share
    When the edges of day
    Are melting away
    Into the night.

    A book and a chair
    Are nice to share
    Touching and talking
    Reading and rocking
    Into the night.

    ReplyDelete
  12. One I wrote just after David died, but seems appropriate to this stretch. Not sure it will format.

    Sitting Down to Eat

    How many times did we sit down to eat
    And you refused the offering?
    One time, ten times, a hundred times,
    Your mouth sore, your stomach drawn in on itself,
    The cancer like some tin-hat dictator
    Forbidding you your life. How many times?
    How many times did I make soup, straining it
    In the blender: tomato, apple, butternut squash,
    Sweetening it to tempt you, decorating the dish.
    There was nothing I would not try,
    Even buying a second blender to be readyShould you want to eat again. How many times?

    Each spoonful a victory, I cozened you
    As if you were a reluctant child, begging,
    Singing, telling you tales, the old choo-choo,
    Spoon chugging into your mouth.
    I did not go quite that far, but would have,
    Had I thought it would work, many times.
    And on the last day, though we didn’t know it
    Till after, you ate an extra spoonful, winked
    At your son. We didn’t say a word, not one,
    So astonished, we took it for a sign
    You were on the mend, relaxed our guard,
    And you slipped away. No more time.

    c 2009 Jane Yolen

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  13. Thank you Tricia. This gave me a chance to write about a friend going through chemo.

    CAPTURED IN TIME
    for Renee

    I got her bald-headed
    picture sent to my
    inbox last week
    her face smiling
    brilliantly
    as tears rush
    down mine
    a rampage
    tumbles
    across
    cheeks
    spills
    over
    chin
    splashes
    onto
    chest.

    Two months
    of chemo
    captured
    in time.

    © Carol Weis. All rights reserved.

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  14. My first grandchild is due in May. This poem is for her.


    To My Unborn Grandchild

    It wasn’t so long ago
    that your daddy
    was a baby—

    my baby

    Even before he was born
    I knew I would love him
    forever.

    From the first time
    the nurse placed
    your daddy in my arms
    I wished he would stay little,
    forever.

    I wanted to watch him sleep
    and read him stories
    and touch his tiny toes
    and listen to his first words
    forever.

    Only love lasts
    forever—
    babies grow up
    much too fast
    and soon your daddy
    became a young man,
    a young man
    who dreamed of a baby
    of his own.

    Now he’s waiting
    for you to arrive—
    so he can watch you sleep
    and read you stories
    and touch your tiny toes
    and listen to your first words.

    He already knows
    he’ll love you
    forever

    and
    so will I.

    Love, Grandma

    ReplyDelete
  15. I'm posting this a second time because I noticed a mistake.That's what I get for writing it right here in the comment section instead of cut and pasting. : )

    My first grandchild is due in May. This poem is for her.


    To My Unborn Grandchild

    It wasn’t so long ago
    that your daddy
    was a baby—

    my baby

    Even before he was born
    I knew I would love him
    forever.

    From the first time
    the nurse placed
    your daddy in my arms
    I wished he would stay little,
    forever.

    I wanted to watch him sleep
    and read him stories
    and touch his tiny toes
    and listen to his first words
    forever.

    But only love
    lasts forever—
    babies grow up
    much too fast
    and soon your daddy
    became a young man,
    a young man
    who dreamed of a baby
    of his own.

    Now he’s waiting
    for you to arrive—
    so he can watch you sleep
    and read you stories
    and touch your tiny toes
    and listen to your first words.

    He already knows
    he’ll love you
    forever

    and
    so will I.

    Love, Grandma

    ReplyDelete