Poetry Friday: End of Year Poems about Light, Hope and Peace

 

Christmas, 2019
(Year of the Bûche de Noël)

December's challenge was designed to be simple:  a poem, of any form, about light, hope and/or peace.  Like many simple things, however, it took work to get to the heart of what I should do with this task. In the end, I decided to lean upon our yearly theme of conversation, and seek out a poem about light that I could be in conversation with.  With Liz's help, I found Lucille Clifton's poem, "the light that came to lucille clifton."  Do you know it?  It begins:

the light that came to lucille clifton

came in a shift of knowing

when even her fondest sureties

faded away. it was the summer

she understood that she had not understood

and was not mistress even

of her own off eye

That's how I've felt lately. My fondest sureties faded away, driven from me by the death of my son, Wade.  I haven't written about it, not a word, because I haven't been able to--and because some piece of me didn't want the Internets to have him, strange as that sounds. I wanted to hold him close, not scatter the news of him out there for garish ads to devour. But it's time to say his name. After less than a year of battling cancer, Wade was buried at Arlington National Cemetery this past summer.  My grief is never-ending.  But there is still light. Light he would want me to see.

 I didn't write this poem with him in mind, but it enabled me to tell you about him.  That is a gift I wasn't expecting from this simple challenge.  And I'm deeply grateful to my poetry sisters, who have grieved with me, and supported me in the most beautiful, tender ways.  

In conversation with Lucille Clifton poem,

 “the light that came to lucille clifton”

I brought the recipe for the light

to my daughter’s house one Christmas—

it was in the shape of a Bûche de Noël—

that clever, cocoa-tinged log of sponge,

spiraled about a layer of espresso buttercream, 

then slicked with frosting as dark as walnut bark, 

combed with the tines of a fork to mimic the roughness 

of woodgrain, and garnished with clustered bulbs

of creamy marzipan mushrooms, meticulously made—

all to be destroyed, sure as the Yule Log 

it mimics used to blaze, crying for the sun to return—

what a burst of merrymaking, yes? 

So I brought the recipe for the light

to my daughter’s house one Christmas—

and asked her to make it. She was much better 

at that kind of thing, and she would enjoy 

the making of it, right?

I can see that you can see

where this is going: The cake, in the end

was correctly, beautifully, gloriously made, 

perfect, even. But I was wrong. 

I only saw that years later, because 

that is how light works. It takes forever

to get from a combusting star to your blind eye,

and in the meantime, you stumble

in the darkness, not knowing that

you are not mistress

of the cake, not mistress of Noël,

not mistress of even your own “off eye”

as Clifton so mysteriously says—

You are servant to the light,

which instructs you to make toast,

if that’s what you can do, and butter it

all the way to the edge, and let it be enough—

or light might say: make the same damn soup,

the one with lentils, and lots of garlic,

and lovely curls of greens, and a wedge of gooey

parmesan melting in the middle. Light might say:

Noël was, and will be; see it there, it comes. 

It is on the table. Amen.

----Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

You can find my poetry sisters' poems about light (and hope and peace) here: 

Tricia (who is hosting Poetry Friday today!)

Liz

Tanita

Laura

Mary Lee

Poetry Friday: The Burning Haibun

Yeah, who thought of this one?  A prose poem, burned down to a second poem, burned down to a haiku? Oh, and please use something actually burning in the poem. And don't forget our yearly theme of conversation! 

No wonder that in our Zoom meeting, no one would admit to proposing the burning haibun as our October challenge, but there we were, stuck with it. We discussed various ways of "cheating"---starting with the end haiku, planting needed words, etc.---but in the end, I just went with my normal free-write process, which generated a sort of story, which I then worked into a prose poem. Burning it down into the second and third poems was much harder, because it felt easy to lose control of meaning as I strove to use the words in fresh ways. In the end, (to quote "Burning Down the House") I fought fire with fire, leaning into honing words in the first poem to give the next two more fuel.  Here it is:

Time is funny

My father knew my mother a year before this story, and (I can’t verify this, time is funny) she asked him to a dance (he said no, he was not a dancer, but later, double that age ((time is funny)) he learned how to waltz for my wedding, whaddya know) but it was only when he saw her, curled up, asleep, on a couch in a study lounge, that he talked to her (I suppose this was after— keeping time is funny, right?— she awoke, but who knows?) He said he planned to be a doctor, and that second (not later, or sooner, time was not funny, but only NOW) her eyes met his, and she said: you’ll be a good doctor. It was but a flicker of conversation—but for sixty years, those bright words consumed his coal-black doubts as he sliced into his patients, who floated on the operating table. Oh, time, so funny for those adrift in sleep! He lifted tumors from organs, and repaired bullet holes, and danced inside people’s bodies with his scalpel until it was time (the light was harsh and hot) to bind skin to skin as he closed. Years later, my mom’s lung sunk into her chest, and she curled up again on a couch. She did not wake. Time, always funny, became a riot, slowing and racing, twisting and bucking, until he, living alone, fell. He was only—at the time— reaching for the phone, for connection, for conversation—but it tore the hell out of his thigh muscle, burned it right off the bone. When he saw me, he said: it’s too much, it’s too much. Time told bad jokes while another doctor (who must have believed he could be a doctor, too) picked through the damage, salvaging what was left of my father’s snapped tendon. He emerged, still beating and flowing, too much, and too little. Time to go look in that drawer, he said. Those are her rings—-a promise ring and a wedding ring—they are yours to take. I slip the rings on my pinky finger (my other knuckles bulge) I feel time push me, like gravity, into my shoes. I’m awake. I hear what he’s saying to me: She believed in me. She believed love is round, and (if time is funny enough) that you can return ashes to light.

A year is a waltz, keeping time,

a flicker of bright bodies— 

harsh time, a riot of damage, 

too much, and too little time.

Go, look! those are rings, 

a promise to slip time

I hear she believed in love, 

and if time is funny, that you return

Bright bodies riot,

damage, and promise, I hear—

Love, time is funny

          ---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

You can find my poetry sisters' links here

Tricia

Liz

Tanita

Laura

Mary Lee

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Jone Rush MacCulloch.

Poetry Friday: The Raccontino, once again

 

This month's poem
is dedicated to my Dad,
who celebrated
 his 88th birthday this June

June's challenge was the raccontino, a form we've tried before (although I had no memory of it until I went back to look at my post in 2015.)  Tricia summarizes the form nicely:

• composed of couplets (any number)
• even number lines share the same end rhyme
• the title and last words of the odd numbered lines tell a story

As usual, our Zoom conversation was about how to best approach this form, which on the surface, is similar to last month's golden shovel in that the end words spell out something. For a golden shovel, you borrow a line from another poem for those end words, and there's no requirement for couplets or rhyme. For the raccontino, you ideally use the end words to create your own story, or (as some of us did) you might use a proverb or short quotation as inspiration-- and in between, you insert lines that have to use the same rhyme all the way through, which complicates things.  

I chose a quote from Hamlet---"More matter with less art" which is what the Queen says to Polonius when she asks about her son's madness, and he pontificates instead of answering. It's not exactly a story, but it does provoke interesting conversation, which is our theme for 2025. 

For example:

• In writing poetry, is nailing down the matter (content) your first concern? Or is following the specific rules of the art form (style) the backbone of your approach?  Which serves your process better? 

For me, the last time I wrote a raccontino, I dove into content headfirst, not even bothering to to shape the rhyme or end lines until after I had my content. The rest of the group thought that was insane.  This time, I began with "art"---choosing the form's end lines and rhyme scheme and letting that shape the content.  I found that surprisingly freeing! 

• And what about the "conversation" between that end line story and the rest of the poem?  Is is supposed to repeat the message?  Contradict it? Or, maybe--more subtly-- create tension with it?  

So much potential for conversation!  Which is one reason I love poetry.  It doesn't have right answers, only good questions. And (hat tip to Hamlet) perhaps a respect for both plain speaking and madness.

 Here's my take on matter/art, in a raccontino:

More

To write a poem that will matter,

disregard (for now) rhyme; reason, too;

listen to the words that lurk with

furtive shifting feet, out of view;

the shy dance of poetry is less

about what the sane will say is true

and more about what is left when art

pares away everything not you. 

           ---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved) 

My poetry sisters' poems can be found here:

Tanita (who is hosting today)

Liz

Tricia

Laura

Mary Lee