Poem: The End and the Beginning

A repost:
My friends and I are constantly sharing poems with each other. SO MANY POEMS. Since April is National Poetry Month, I wanted to share one of my very favorites, a poem called "The End and the Beginning" by Polish poet, Wislawa Szymborska. I love it more each time I read it. It really speaks to my Polish heritage.

The End and the Beginning
by Wislawa Szymborska

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won't
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall,
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it's not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

We'll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew
what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.

Poem: To the Western World

This poem has one of the best last lines I've ever read.

To the Western World

Related Poem Content Details

BY LOUIS SIMPSON

Book Review: Phenomenal Woman

Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women by Maya Angelou
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Whenever I feel the pressure of a misogynistic world, this is the book I will run to. I will open this tiny collection of four poems and gain the strength and power of a truly phenomenal woman. When I have my own home and I begin to collect the books that I want at my side, this will be one of the first I seek.

...
They accuse me of livin'
from day to day,
but who are they kiddin'?
So are they.

My life ain't heaven
but it sure ain't hell.
I'm not on top
but I call it swell

From Weekend Glory


View all my reviews

Book Review: Dog Songs

Dog Songs by Mary Oliver
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I wish I could give this book more than five stars. Since my father passed away, I have considered death and dying so much more seriously. This book took me back to all my dogs and reminded me of the love I had for all of them. And frankly, it reminded me of all the love that they had for me. It did not matter we were poor. It did not matter that perhaps we didn't always share the happiest of times. Those dogs showed our family unconditional, wild love. I love each and every one of those doggies.

If you are hurting from a loss of a dog, read this book. The poetry touched my heart in so many ways and pulled a few tears from my eyes. This is what poetry does. Like dogs, it reminds us that there is still something wild inside us, love. Love is so natural and real and burns into the very being of us as humans. It is joyous, yes. But once love is gone, taken by death, it hurts.

This book, I believe, can help us heal when we hurt. The memories that we hold close keep the spirits of the departed with us forever.


View all my reviews

Year of Gratitude - Day 303 - They Softly Walk

The outpouring of love I have experienced recently has been a true gift of comfort. Today I received a card with excerpts of Hugh Robert Orr's "They Softly Walk" written inside. It is so perfect and comforting. I am grateful for such thoughtful people in my life, especially now.

They Softly Walk - Hugh Robert Orr

They are not gone who pass

Beyond the clasp of hand,

Out from the strong embrace.

They are but come so close

We need not grope with hands,

Nor look to see, nor try

To catch the sound of feet.

They have put off their shoes

Softly to walk by day

Within our thoughts, to tread

At night our dream-led paths

Of sleep.

...

They are not dead who live

In hearts they leave behind.

In those whom they have blessed

They live a life again,

And shall live through the years

Eternal life, and grow

Each day more beautiful

As time declares their good,

Forgets the rest, and proves

Their immortality.

Year of Gratitude - Day 268 - Shel Silverstein

There are no happy endings. 
Endings are the saddest part, 
So just give me a happy middle 
And a very happy start. 

~ Shel Silverstein

(via Goodreads)

Year of Gratitude - Day 181 - Domesticity

On my walk today, I heard this poem. I enjoyed it because it reminds me of the simple joys I share with my husband. Not that I have broken ribs or anything, but that we spend a lot of time watching baseball together and I love every second. He doesn't even like baseball that much, but it's a compromise that he agrees to. For that, I'm grateful.

From: June 6, 2015 Writer's Almanac

Domesticity

by Maxine Kumin

Oh, what a weak sticker, you groan, as the batter pops
out to the infield. We’re propped
up in two beds—mine’s electric, with crib
sides, rented to ease eleven broken ribs —
watching the Red Sox, who are in the cellar
and dozing between Demerol and errors.

You yawn, the resident optimist
no family should lack, always stitching
a selvedge along the silver lining
—the luck of my unbroken pelvis—
so that when in a bizarre twist
they tie it up in the bottom of the ninth
you crow, they’re still alive and kicking!
We rouse as for the crisis of an old friend
and watch through extra innings to the end.

“Domesticity” by Maxine Kumin from The Long Marriage. © WW Norton, 1996. 

Year of Gratitude - Day 120 - Poem in Your Pocket Day

When one works regularly with librarians, one will find all kinds of fun things that revolve around reading, writing, poetry, etc. One of those things is "Poem in your Pocket" Day. Last year, I took a big pile of poems from Good Poems for Hard Times (yes, I had them handy), shoved them in my baseball bag and headed down to Comerica Park. I sat at the bar, waiting for my friend to phone so we could meet at the gates. When she did, I paid my tab and handed a few strangers a few poems. I had passed some out at work as well.

No one expected me to hand them a poem. Even after I said, "It's Poem in your Pocket" Day, people still looked at me bewildered. I told them to read it, enjoy it and pass it on. A coworker told me that she really liked hers and kept it posted at her desk.

Enjoy poetry!

• Celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 30

Year of Gratitude - Day 110 - City of Tonawanda Softball Championship

Here is another poem that I always return to. It's another that one of my dear friends shared with me and it's particularly awesome because it's about softball and is jam-packed with all kinds of great baseball lingo. Poetry and baseball together? Doesn't get much better than that!

City of Tonawanda Softball Championship
by Sarah Freligh

Two down, two out, two on in the ninth
when Sid Szymanski stands in at catcher,
sorry substitute for Larry whose sure
hands were summoned to a plumbing
emergency by his buzzing pager in the bottom
of the sixth. Still, the usual chatter
Hum baby, hey baby hum hey Sidder Sidder Sidder
though Zack's guys are mentally packing
bats in bags, unlacing shoes in order
to get away-fast-before the Panthers,
arrogant bastards, can gather at home plate
in a love knot of high fives and beer foam
and gloat. Strike two and Sid calls time,
steps out to take a couple of practice cuts
a la Barry Bonds, like him a big man,
all head and chest, and Siddersiddersidder
the car keys are out, that's all she wrote
when the pitcher gets cute with a breaking ball,
hanging it a nanosecond too long, time
enough for even fat sad Sid to get around
and give that pill a ride.

Rounding first, already red faced, a crowd
in his throat, Sid wants to believe
it's not the sludge of a million
French fries, but pleasure
more exquisite than the first breast
he touched one winter Sunday
while his dad in the den upstairs
cursed the Packers and Bart Starr, while his mom
chattered on the phone to her friend
Thelma about the macaroni casserole
and menstrual cramps, Sid swallowed
hard and bookmarked his place
in Our Country's History, the page before
the Marines stormed the hill at Iwo Jima
and turned back the godless Japs, a high tide
clogging his chest as Alice Evans unfastened
the pearl buttons of her white blouse
and presented him with the wrapped gift
of her breasts, now second base and third
and the thicket of hand-slaps all the way
home where Sid hugs the center fielder
hurried and embarrassed the way men do,
oh, the moment, replayed again and again
over Labatt's at Zack's, the first pitcher
delivered by the great Zack himself
rumored to have been the swiftest,
niftiest shortstop on the Cardinal farm
but called to serve in Korea and after that
the closest he got to baseball was standing
next to Ted Williams at a Las Vegas urinal

Tomorrow Zack will make a place
for the trophy between dusty bottles
of Galliano and Kahlua while Sid
will field calls from customers complaining
about rising cable rates and too many queers
on TV, pretty much what he'll be doing
five years from now and ten when his wife
leaves a meatloaf in the freezer and runs off
with Larry the plumber and in twenty years,
when Zack's Bar is bulldozed
to make way for a Wal-Mart,
Sid will slump in a wheelchair
in a hallway littered with old men
mumbling and lost, wrapped
in the soft cloth of memory:
The arc of the white ball, a pearl
in the jewel box of twilight sky.

"City of Tonawanda Softball Championship" by Sarah Freligh, from Sort of Gone. © Turning Point Books, 2008. Reprinted with permission.

Year of Gratitude - Day 99 - The Street

So grateful this was shared with me. Well done, Mr. Eddie Stewart!

Happy Poetry Month to you all.

Year of Gratitude - Day 93 - Vikram Seth, “All You Who Sleep Tonight”

~ Vikram Seth, “All You Who Sleep Tonight”

Year of Gratitude - Day 91 - Writer's Almanac

Happy Poetry Month! 

Yes indeed, April is National Poetry Month and you should check out both the Academy of American Poets's website AND the Writer's Almanac, narrated by the one and only Garrison Keillor. I have been listening to the Writer's Almanac podcast for a lot of years and it still stands as one of my absolute favorites.

Year of Gratitude - Day 68 - Time

Lang Leav, “Time”

Year of Gratitude - Day 53 - Kindness and Courage

“Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone.
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.”

― Adam Lindsay Gordon (source: Goodreads)

Year of Gratitude - Day 17 - Poetry 2

This poem is one that speaks to me in many personal ways. When I first read it, I was going through a difficult situation (not with my husband). My husband was there for me through all tears, struggle and uncertainty.

To My Dear and Loving Husband
By Anne Bradstreet

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

As always, the Poetry Foundation provides the poem, a reading, the history behind it and a guide to the poem's content.

Year of Gratitude - Day 7 - Poetry 1

Eternity by William Blake



Evil by Langston Hughes



Perfect by Ellen Hopkins (via Sea of Quotes originally)

30 Days of Gratitude: Day 10 - Poetry

Ah, poetry. Once, I just didn't get it. Then I wrote some and I got it. Mind you, my poetry is not complex or good. But it is mine. At the time of writing it, it felt great. When I reread old stuff - like this or this - I love it. It is a part of me on the page in tattered verse. I am grateful for having learned more about poetry, because I got to learn more about myself.

A librarian I work with was involved in getting teens into poetry. We talked about how reading poetry aloud is one of the single best ways to truly start enjoying poetry. It was the best advice for my personal discovery of poetry as well.

Check this link for all my poetry posts and enjoy you some poetry.

Existential Haiku. Or not.

Destroy existence

Absurdity takes hold here

The dying breath lives.

Meaning from whose mind?

The wind asked through the chimes

The answer is truth.

Smoking and drinking

Sinning, death and life matter

Only in our dreams.

Pen and paper make

Memories into something

Slightly serious.

I celebrate National Poetry Month with the wind.

Poetry has gained a lot of ground in my life this April. When my wonderful little niece died earlier this month, emotions poured from my mind in broken verse. I must organize these tatters of thoughts and reinvigorate my poetic self.


Yesterday I went on a bike ride and listened to The Writer's Almanac for nearly two hours. Garrison Keillor talked about a poet who said that poetry helps us to slow life down and take in the details that we overlook each day. My life has been full of death and suffering already this year. I have also enjoyed a few conversations about being mindful and grateful of life's beauty. These two things helped me realize that poetry is critical to experiencing life to the fullest. To slowing us down, showing us what we are missing.

Since I completed my taxes yesterday (late, but better than never), a huge burden was lifted from me, giving me time to relax. Today I spent my time writing in my journal because I felt a poetic burst and I wanted to at least capture a few of the topics floating in my mind. My writing was fueled by an early morning dream and bad news just after waking. Now I'm writing this as I try to piece all my abstractions together. I guess I better keep pen and paper handy today.

Adrienne Rich 1929-2012

After my afternoon journal writing spurt, I continued to read from Adrienne Rich's An Atlas of the Difficult World. I came upon Ms. Rich's poetry because of a great quote of hers: "You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it." I love her. Reading it today made me realize how much I love the reference of wind in poetry. Here is a taste and I've put emphasis on my favorite part (p. 10-11):

Stepped out onto the night-porch.   That wind has changed,
                      though still from the south
it's blowing up hard now, no longer close to earth but driving
                      high
into the crowns of the maples, into my face
almost slamming the stormdoor into me.   But it's warm, warm,
pneumonia wind, death of innocence wind, unwinding wind,
time-hurtling wind.    And it has a voice in the house.   I hear
conversations that can't be happening, overhead in the bedrooms
and I'm not talking of ghosts.    The ghosts are here of course but
                      they speak plainly
---haven't I offered food and wine, listened well for them all
                      these years,
not only those known in life but those before our time
of self-deception, our intricate losing game of innocence long
                      overdue?

Winds bring change. Winds can be gentle or destructive, warm or cold. It's the change that is the wind's most important function and I really think Ms. Rich captured that here. While my favorite part of the passage doesn't address change directly, it does lead into it. I knew I had to include all the verses because they speak to the relationship between the past and present, how we lose our innocence and often deny it. Nobody likes change, but the wind blows on.

Another wind-inspired treat I was reminded of yesterday whilst on my bike ride was this advice from poet Paul Verlaine:

You must let your poems ride their luck
On the back of the sharp morning air
Touched with the fragrance of mint and thyme ...
And everything else is Literature.

No, wind is not mentioned outright, but "sharp morning air" becomes wind to me when I ride early, hence why I thought of it. I heard this on the March 30, 2009 Writer's Almanac podcast, which is all archived online and a MUST if you are into poetry and literature.

Along with that very same podcast, the website reminded me of this great poem by Bruce Dethlefsen called "When Somebody Calls after Ten P.M."

The oldest monthly in the English speaking world turns 100.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/

When Somebody Calls after Ten P.M.

when somebody calls after ten p.m.
and you live in wisconsin
and you're snug in your bed

then all's I can tell you
somebody better be missing
somebody better had a baby
or somebody better be dead

After great pain a formal feeling comes (poem)

A perfect poem for winter, courtesy of Emily Dickinson.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes—

The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs—

The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,

And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round—

Of Ground, or Air, or Ought—

A Wooden way

Regardless grown,

A Quartz contentment, like a stone—

This is the Hour of Lead—

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow—

First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—