Poems We Love - a place to share poetry

[Guest]

.

[Amy-in-PHX]

"Phoebe Snow, 60, a dynamic singer who found early success in 1975 with her hit “Poetry Man” and then retreated into obscurity to care for her disabled daughter, died April 26 at a hospital in Edison, N.J. She had complications from a brain hemorrhage suffered in January 2010."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/phoebe-snow-powerful-singer-of-1970s-hit-poetry-man-dies-at-60/2011/04/27/AFxN5x1E_story.html

I am saddened to hear of Phoebe Snow's death.  I also wish the writer had chosen a word other than "retreated," which sounds to me as though s/he is saying Phoebe ran away from something.  I am certain she would not have chosen disability for her daughter, but when faced with that reality, her choice to provide her daughter with loving care may have been the most courageous and life-affirming choice she could make at the time.  The fact that it did not keep her in the public eye, did not make it a "retreat."  (IMHO)  My Aunt Enid, one of the most courageous women I have known, devoted her life to caring for her disabled son.  She did not "retreat" into that choice.

[Jill]

I already highlighted this video elsewhere but if you're going to read about Neruda, anyway, maybe you'll want to click on the following song version of one of his poems so you can have some musical accompaniment as you read this post.



I came across this article about the really wonderful Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, this morning. For me, it had a lot of learning and a lot to be fascinated by.
The Heart and Soul of Pablo Neruda


After I finished it, I wanted to read some more of this great heart's poetry.  So I ended up here. There's quite a selection.


I took the time to check out only a few -- for now.  Do yourselves a favor and have a sampling, yourselves.  Remember, you don't have to like the whole of a poem or even to completely "get" it. If you simply find some lines here and there that touch you, that should be gift enough.


Curious but wary because of the title, I decided to check this one out.  I especially identified with and enjoyed the part where he described walking with his dog on the beach.
A Dog Has Died


And here's one on a much happier subject that depicts a man supreme in confidence and sense of self, very richly and wisely in love.
Always

EDIT:  The Neruda poem I posted here remains one of my all-time favorites....

EDIT #2: I went looking for, hoping for a picture of the papier-mache horse the article said that Neruda owned in his wild and crazy and very fun-sounding collections.  Since I only wanted to devote a couple of minutes to that silly search, I couldn't find that but I did find this and so was partly appeased:

"Neruda's head carved into the rock at the beach outside his house at Isla Negra, the most famous of his three houses and where he wrote the majority of his poetry."

[Jill]

Speaking of Pablo Neruda (as I was in the preceding post), if smiling and friendship and poetry and the ocean and love are things that you believe, as I believe, you just can’t have too much of in your life, you might get pleasure from the film, Il Postino, The Postman. There’s something kind of dear about it.  And…. it’s especially fun to share with someone you love.

[Jill]

I’m not sure that I know what this poem means.  I’m also not sure that it matters whether I do or whether you do or not.  All I know is that I loved this guy’s eyes.   I loved his smile.  I loved his delivery.   And to the extent that it’s possible to feel this way about an absolute and complete stranger I’d never heard of until a few minutes ago, I felt like I loved his “being.”  If you’re lucky, you’ll find something you’ll respond to as well.


According to Wikipedia, he’s able to earn an income as a touring poet.  In these times, in this country, that’s pretty amazing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anis_Mojgani    

[Jill]

I’ve been trying not to watch or read too much about this tenth anniversary of September 11th.  I’ve found that I can’t help putting myself in the place, especially, of the family members, and it’s just too hard. (There was a super neat, super bright guy from a small podunk town in Idaho I went to law school with who had all kinds of wonderful homegrown ironic expressions that proved useful for any variety of situations, one of which came to mind as I was typing that last sentence.  “I’d rather be horsewhipped”).


All that said, when I came across this article mentioning something about a 13 year old survivor reading a poem, my curiosity and love of (some) poetry got the best of me, and I only half-regrettably read it and watched the video that was embedded in it.  And, of course, cried. His comment that he made close to the time that he lost his dad really resonated.  And so did the poem that he read at a memorial two years after.


"I don't want to talk to nobody, see nobody, do nothing," he told a news reporter then. "I just want to go to the cemetery and say that I love him..."


The poem:

Stars
I like the way they looked down from the sky / And didn't seem to mind the way I cried / And didn't say, 'Now wipe away those tears,' / Or, 'Tell us, tell us what's the matter here!' / But shining through the dark they calmly stayed / And gently held me in their quiet way.  / I felt them watching over me, each one / And let me cry and cry till I was done.
-Deborah Chandra-



*On this September 11th, and especially, in the face of all the words and images and feelings I can't seem to escape no matter how much I might try, I felt the inclination to go to Google Images and type in the word, peace,  to see if anything would jump out at me, begging to be attached to this post.  In the midst of a near infinite number of multi-colored peace signs and of sweet little kids flashing their finger-formed V’s, have a look at whose picture was jam-packed right in the middle of all of them (That peace man we all feel pretty indebted to can now be found beneath the video and commentary I just added with my edit).


EDIT:



As the politicians and others say:
God Bless America


As I wish they would know to reflexively add and that everyone else would think and feel,
And God* Bless The Rest Of The World, Too


*or Anybody Else who can and will.

[Jill]

I’m incredibly lucky.  And I know it*.
There are many many many many things that make me happy.  That give me pleasure.
This is one of them:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1q7rJP/www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/rives_remixes_ted2006.html

* And sometimes, though not nearly often enough, I’m bright enough to actually take a moment and to mindfully feel gratefulness for it, for all I have, for all I’ve been given.  But not nearly often enough…..


AFTERTHOUGHT: Thanks to Kiva lending team Education Generation team members, Eileen and Carolyn, I watched what I thought was a really rich, wonderfully thought-provoking video called “Schooling the World.”  I almost immediately thought of KivaFriends and how I wished that the information about it had been posted not only within the relatively narrow confines of a team message board page but that someone had posted about it here, so that more people would have an opportunity to hear about it.  

I think it’s going to be available for free online viewing for perhaps only another 24 hours, but in case even a few of you might think you want to have a look, perhaps,  first you should check out the two minute trailer at the link that follows, and then decide:

http://globaleducation.ning.com/page/virtual-film-screenings?xg_source=shorten_twitter
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDIT: Up to my old tricks, apparently….

Just came across this.  I’d heard of the project, One Day On Earth, but hadn’t seen the trailer before this.  All I can say (at least, all that right now I will say) is that if the completed film is even half as captivating as the trailer was, we who care about and who are engaged in our world have a real treat in store for us.  
Check it out (and make sure that you have the video fill your screen while you're watching it):

http://globaleducation.ning.com/video/one-day-on-earth-motion-picture-trailer

“We’re a speck in a speck in a speck.”

“One community, trying to exist apart from all other communities, is not in any way acknowledging the entirety of existence, and how it depends,  everything depends on everything.”

“All this, thousands, thousands of different minds, different views, different thoughts, interconnected….”

[balanda]

Remember Gladys


It's heartbreaking,
the news today
of an amazing friend.


Gladys is gone.
She was thirty three.


We don't know how.
We don't know why,
But the classroom
has fallen silent
and I am lost.

This woman, a teacher,
founded a school and,
along with six others,
brought the light of learning
into the yearning, young hearts
of all those who found her there.
We have lost a great hero,

The kind of hero we really need;
one who, with a heartfelt wish,
one kind and noble inkling,
sets the dimmer stars twinkling,
and sometimes blazing, for us.

She had no bank balance,
gave no mighty promise of peace
on the coattails of some foolhardy war.
She had no summer residence,
no exit strategy.
Heroes have no such need.

Remember Gladys

when you see the smile of a child,
and you hear her friends laughing,
at play in the yard.

Remember Gladys,

Hero to so many who needed a voice,
who would be lost but were found
in the heart of one teacher,

Because heroes are just like this
in a world full of doubt.
One caring soul
can turn it all around
for us.

Remember Gladys.


http://www.kiva.org/lend/228106?

[Jill]

Dear Balanda,

I read your poem.  I thought it was really special.  

And then, I went to the link you provided.  Saw that, by chance, I was actually on that loan.  Saw that the loan had inexplicably ended after the entrepreneur had repaid 99%.

Still didn't get it.

Then I saw that there was a loan update, actually, from today.  I read it.

Instant aching.

And awe -- for your poem.

Thank you, deeply, for your post, for your incredible poem.
I am with you in your heart's caring for Gladys Zindori Gideon, for her family and friends, for her kids. 

Your post and your caring represent, for me, some of the best of Kiva and of KivaFriends.

I thank you for both.
Jill

[balanda]

Many thanks, Jill.  Your thoughts are very much appreciated.