Catch that poem
Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.
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– Mary Oliver
Running to Catch a Poem: Remembering the Poet in the Story
Poems came to me
As if from far away.
I would feel them coming,
I would rush into the house,
Looking for paper and pencil.
It had to be quick,
For they passed through me
And were gone forever.
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– Ruth Stone, “Fragrance” (in her last collection “What Love Comes To”
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As a poet myself, I feel for Ruth Stone, because thanks to Elizabeth Gilbert, Stone’s mode of chasing poems like runaway horses is favorite, but few have read the poet herself or even remember her name. It’s well worth seeking out her work and noticing, along the way, how she rose above a dark river of grief and pain, especially after her second husband (also a poet) hanged himself from a door in the family home.
Oh yes. Then there are two delicious further revelations in Gilbert’s account of how she heard it from Stone. When a poem got away from her, she felt it galloping away, “searching for another poet”. Then sometimes she would manage to grab an escaping poem by the tail, and would feel herself pulling it back. “In these instances, the poem would appear on the page from the last word to the first – backward, but otherwise intact.” (Elizabeth Gilbert, “Big Magic”, 65.)
Many of us dreamers know exactly how that works, as we pull back dreams by the tail as they run away. How many of the dreams that escape go searching for another dreamer?
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Robert Moss
photo sources found @ http://www.pinterest.com
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I string words like pearls
Knotting silence between each one
like silk thread
in a jewelers skillful hands
long strands or chokers
strategic placing of diamonds
where needed
sometime a sparkling featured
brilliant jeweled pendant
always taking special care with the hardware
the finishing is the most important
must stand up to daily use
easy for right or left hands alike
then a final polish before bagging
when each piece is complete
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AL
life: acoustic & amplified 