Better than mingling with your consonants
Once they get going, they never waver
And they slip in between your ifs, ands, and buts
Lucinda Williams, singer/song writer “Words” from the CD West
Brian's comment (see his blog at Incertus) "On Rambling" below about having Miller Williams as a professor is the inspiration for this post.
I took a poetry class at UCLA a couple of years ago and it was a real eye opener. You really don't want to be obscure or create a bunch of rhymes. As Williams explains in his book"Making a Poem:"
It [the poem] must have the power to make us respond, to make us more alive. We have to react to it...
The following make his point, clearly. I am not even much of an animal person, but I want a dog after this poem:
Listen
I threw a snowball across the backyard.
My dog ran after it to bring it back.
It broke as it fell, scattering snow over snow.
She stood confused, seeing and smelling nothing.
She searched in widening circles until I called her.
She looked at me and said as clearly in silence
As if she had spoken,
I know it’s here, I’ll find it,
went back to the center and started the circles again.
I called her two more times before she came
slowly, stopping once to look back.
That was this morning. I’m sure that she’s forgotten.
I’ve had some trouble putting it out of my mind.
Compassion
Have compassion for everyone you meet
even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit, bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on
Down there where the spirit meets the bone
3 comments:
Has to be a powerful poem if it makes YOU want to get a dog.
Cool. Makes me want to get a dog, too! My cat would just shoot me one of 'those' looks of utter feline contempt and dismissal at my idiocy..
I love that compassion poem, too. How right. Some of us have wounds that are so deep we can't even see them ourselves sometimes.
OTM, my saving grace is that we don't live anywhere snow can be found easily.
Chandira, both poems are incredible because you can see the situations clearly and easily identify with them.
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