Poems on Stone

Maybe I've spent too long on the beach but I've begun to wonder about stones... 

It's good to know I'm not alone, here's an extract from a fascinating Mary Oliver poem challenging us to think differently about the world around us.

Do Stones Feel?

Mary Oliver

Do stones feel?

Do they love their life?

Or does their patience drown out everything else?

When I walk on the beach I gather a few

      white ones, dark ones, the multiple colors.

Don’t worry, I say, I’ll bring you back, and I do.

I won't print the whole poem for copyright reasons but you can find it in her collection "Blue Horses".

Another provocative poem about stones is this one by Charles Simic and again I give you a taster

Stone

Charles Simic

Go inside a stone

That would be my way.

Let somebody else become a dove

Or gnash with a tiger’s tooth.

I am happy to be a stone.

From Selected Early Poems by Charles Simic. Copyright © 1999, 2012 by Charles Simic.

 Naturally I have begun to write my own stone poems and will add a few here as they emerge. 

Set in Stone

Sally Givertz

Look!

These stones fit as if they were meant

The way that one is bent into the other’s curve

Sure, one’s much bigger than the other

And it’s not an obvious match

But when you see them leant together

It’s as if a patch of sky had found its perfect cloud

They don’t declare undying love aloud

They’re not just a load of hot air

Because they’re actually stones

It would be fair to say that -

At least in time-strapped human terms

Their love is here to stay

©sallygivertz 2017

It's the little things now

The last blog post was titled for my dad - "Be of good cheer" was one of his favourite expressions. He died quite a while ago but November 4th was his birthday and I will have a dram later and drink to "absent friends".  His generation lived or died through the war and got by on cups of tea and cigarettes it seems.  We are luckier. 

Just now many of us are talking about the surreal nature of the impending US election, the enormity of the refugee crisis and the confusion over Brexit - to B or not to B? Maybe it's because I am getting older (just a little) but some days it seems as if the world really is going to hell in a handcart. Rarely has the global picture looked more sombre. 

Somehow we go on with our lives.  We even enjoy them. This poem came to me during a sleepless night and I think it's about this phenomenon. An awareness of our precarious hold on the world combined with a need to "keep calm and carry on".  What's your solace?

It’s the little things now

Sally Givertz

Wandering over this troubled globe

There are – the UN tells us -

more than three million

refugees

And in the States the average mind

has sunk so low, they want to elect

a Primitive Life Form as their

leader

As for our crowded little island

We are become a disunited kingdom

Don’t know whether we are coming or

going.

So today we took a low-key trip

The ordinary stuff – the groceries

A charity shop or

two

Then stopped, this dreich day

to look at the sea, watch the grey waves

and the windscreen grow dappled with

rain.

As the inside gently misted over

we shared a Thermos of coffee

(the real thing, not instant)

and

A fresh, perfect, almond croissant.

Here suddenly, out of almost

nothing, the taste of

happiness

   

3.11.16

Have a good day in a small way. 

Be of good cheer

Every morning I walk like this around the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close, 
I am as good as dead. 

Every morning, so far, I’m alive. 

Mary Oliver

These lines are from a poem called "Landscape" and I think it offers a good reminder that we need to keep our hearts open. The poem ends with an image of crows.

The wonderful Norman MacCaig uses a "stoned crow" metaphor for this poem that I also love:

A writer

Norman MacCaig   (1910-1996)

Events got him in a corner

and gave him a bad time of it –

poverty, people, ill-health

battered at him from all sides.

So far from being silenced,

he wrote more poems than ever

and all of them different –

just as a stoned crow

invents new ways of flying

it had never thought of before.

No wonder now he sometimes

suddenly lurches, stalls, twirls sideways,

before continuing his effortless level flight

so high over the heads of people

their stones can’t reach him.

 

I enjoy the idea that criticism or bad luck can just make us more creative and determined to do our own thing regardless. Strangely cheering. 

                                               Bruce Monro  -  Field of Light 

I've been finding cheer in all sorts of places and with winter approaching we seek as much light as possible. 

You’ll Never Walk alone

Sally Givertz

How are you?

Well my body has let me down a couple of times lately

I’m sure there were faults on both sides

Maybe I wasn’t giving her enough attention

Did stuff I shouldn’t have done

Until she flat refused to carry me any further

Just lay down and refused all food or comfort

I was totally out of it for a while, I was steaming!

I flew off and wandered in strange lands

Didn’t know where I was half the time

Until I got scared and came back to her

We called for mediation

The doc gave us stern instructions

Told us to pull ourselves back together

So we made a pledge

She’ll do as I ask if I treat her right

So I give her more of my time

I take her to the gym

Lift the damn weights

She lets me lounge on the bed reading lyric poetry

In return I eat right and drink green tea -

Whatever it takes

We’re still an item her and me

Thanks for asking

The Day the Music Revived

Sally Givertz

Feeling like a glad Lazarus

Raised up by antibiotics

I started last night with Bach – what else?

And today the gold of Mozart 

Fell on me like a blessing

After four days of radio silence – 

all gone dark 

Locked in the box of my brain

I can switch on, re-tune
Receive and be glad

Finally I include this poem by Charlie Rossiter that actually uses the word bliss - well he even makes it into a verb. Such a sane way to approach the arrival of winter.  Celebrate and embrace it.  Enjoy! 

Blissing on the Season's First Snowfall

Charlie Rossiter

I light a morning candle

and lift my cup of espresso

the hiss of the old radiator

purrs to me like a friendly cat

I lift my cup of espresso

and wish a silent wish

blissing on the season's first snowfall

listening to the hiss of the old radiator

the kiss of morning espresso steam

rising to disappear in pearly air

outside, snow falls silent as a stalking cat

the candle flickers in columns of warm

air rising, I lift my cup of espresso

to the single silent wish, to always

and forever to this much love my life. 

Blessings and a New Muse

This blog has been in the Doldrums but now I am inspired to put text to screen once more and share some poetry with my invisible friends: 

This is a photo of my travelling companion at a cafe table outside Henderson's in Edinburgh. I just want to emphasise the joy of Edinburgh on a sunny day. This year's International Festival was wonderful as always.

A recent blessing has been the arrival into my life of a new muse - I hope she sticks around ....

Walking with Impunity

She’s not an ocelot

It’s a different sort of face

Rosettes not single spots

With power and grace

She matches me pace for pace

She’s not a cheetah

That would be too fast

Never outruns me

I don’t come last

She’s not a jaguar

Her head more fine

People believe in stranger things

This is mine.

She’s not my daemon

We proudly share a gender

And somewhere in here

Thanks to her -

I’m still young and full of grace

I have leopard-print leggings

And a stunning face

My eyes are compelling

This fantasy is telling

She strolled in through

A Big Cat-flap in my mind

Imaginary friend

I won’t outgrow

She came

And made herself at home

In the fantasy land

Of my muddled brain

When life was cold

And time had slowed

And in alternative reality

She warms the plains

And mountain ranges

Keeps me sane

No sense of her mortality

My alter ago, better self

The creature I would choose to be

She never changes

Wild and free

I’m channelling -

My muse, my leopard, my Impunity

Who or what would your imaginary friend be?

  

I needed a little rant about the affection many of us feel for the beleaguered NHS after it has been challenged and eroded in so many ways recently.  Somehow many of the staff summon up the Spirit of the Blitz and keep on giving of their best. I wrote this after encountering a particularly amazing doctor who showed no signs of compassion fatigue - a small miracle. Some of the buildings people have to work in are Third world standard but this man and many others are First Class. They deserve better and I wrote this to make the point (and the rant was very good for me). 

Hands On

Sally Givertz

They're like gold dust round here

Can't get one for love nor money

A waiting list as long as your arm

And even then you'll be lucky

But they sent this one over from 

Aberdeen!

He made like it was just for me

Relaxed, all the time in the world

He said, "Can I see your hands?"  

He took them so gently and looked;

He turned them over palms upward,

And looked.

I felt blessed, recognised, seen. 

Like Jane being clocked by Rochester

Bless the NHS

For all your faults

(And they are many)

We love you

You’re family 

We won't let the bastards grind you down

We all know who they are -

Chasing the money

Getting their hands dirty

And covered in grime

But you at the front line

At the coal face 

In the line of fire

You walk out of the flames 

Shining 

So a short blog to warm up with. May you be inspired too. 

My boat is so small and the sea is so wide

photo by Gordon Parks

Summer in the City 

may look glamorous but the reality is very different. We stay here in the village and go for our city fix later in the year. People come to stay from all over the world, they rent the holiday cottages and liven up the village - the world-wide-web makes it possible. Many of us living here have to cope without a decent mobile phone signal but we are blessed with the internet and that keeps us sane.
"Only connect ""...

Summer in the village

So much comes to us. 

We had a a close encounter in June,  The cold, wet spring made eider ducklings rarer and later in arriving. 

Lost and Found

What are you?

I get closer and scoop you up

A lucky strike – have you safely enclosed in one hand

Small eider duckling with elegant eye-stripes

Feathers like tiny hairs and a big personality

What was your mother thinking

Leaving you tumbling over our steps?

We find yet another use for a Lidl plastic trug

Lie you in a teatowel and hear you cheep-cheeping

Grab the ipad for a quick snapshot -

A composition in suffragette purple, green and white

With you, a tiny brown dot in the centre

One may take a duck to water but …

When we find a crèche for you to bond with -

The sight of a long, thin man,

topped by an orange hat

Holding a purple trug

and brandishing a duckling

Seems to spook your relatives on the water

Off they all fly each time we approach -

An inter-species misunderstanding

Finally he launches you

Into an unknown future

We scan the sea-

Eider duckling

Is that you?

©Sally Givertz         June 22nd 2015

This is what made me think of that quotation:  "My boat is so small and the sea is so wide."

When one sees an eider ducks on a wild day with the waves battering them it seems unlikely that the young will survive but they ride the waves fearlessly and seem somehow glued to the water. They disappear neatly to snatch a quick bite and pop up unperturbed.  Blissfully unaware of the magnitude of the sea they just get on with living. 

Feeling like a leaf

                                              photo by Rob Mckay

This blog post stalled because I was feeling like a leaf....

Yesterday I came across this poem by the wonderful Naomi Shihab Nye:

The Art Of Disappearing

Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don't I know you?
say no.

When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say  We should get together
say why?

It's not that you don't love them anymore.
You're trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees.  The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven't seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don't start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

I love this poem and it had just the right words at the right moment for me; the last three lines in particular. If you are feeling fragile or overwhelmed it might help.  Decide what to do with your time.

(Note about copyright - I don't usually publish poems by living writers but this one is already up on the internet and I am sure that it will help sales of her poetry rather than reducing them.  If anyone thinks I should take it down or just give a short extract please let me know.)

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/naomi-shihab-nye

This is a link to information about this outstanding poet.  She is not Scottish but I am widening the parameters of the blog - we are all global citizens after all.

Update - now writing this in September 2016 - blog went into the Doldrums we I am steering out of it now.