Friday, April 6, 2012

Poetry Friday: Poetry Forgives




[Flickr: Robyn Gallagher]


Poetry Forgives

I can’t believe I left
you at the market
lost you to a shiny eggplant

so smooth you could read
by its reflection, as if purple
were a midnight lake

and you a word dropped in;
illuminating a thousand nests, dark
from dark, along the thistled shore

while I went home 
plastic bags of groceries 
on my arms, low-hanging fruit

dumped to the tiled floor
while I ran back, calling
loon-like, in hunger 

to the eggplant, 
singing now with oiled
throaty pleasure

---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

A friend and I were discussing how I'd let this blog and my poetry fall idle.  After he gently scolded me for that, I said, thank goodness, poetry forgives.  

I believe that. Poetry forgives a reader's first attempts to hold it, awkwardly like a baby. It forgives the insults and slander we hurl at it at times. It overlooks how ridiculously we pose it, in a velour track suit, on a pedestal, then ignore its musty gaze.  It  even forgives our insecure, pretentious stabs when we take sharpened pencil in hand and poke holes in the paper of our lives to see what bleeds. 

All we need do is return.  Poetry is nothing if not a way home. 

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Robyn at Read, Write Howl. The full schedule is at A Year of Reading, here


19 comments:

  1. Oh, Sara.

    This resounds. Writing, as a whole, is like this for me, and reminds me of this author's take on writing:

    Last of all, the experience of writing and the experience of prayer are both, to me, forms of communion, in which the self is abandoned in favor of participation in something more spacious and wiser.

    Beautiful. As is your poem.

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    1. Thanks for that link, and the gorgeous quote.

      I;m also enamored of this sentence from the same article:

      "like having frenzied weasels lick and nibble your face while you lie on the floor, unable to get up."

      All in all, I need to meet that man. And read that book.

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  2. Lovely, Sara. The journeys, detours, and home.

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    1. Did I ever tell you how much I love that blue scarf you're wearing in your profile picture? Like a jolt of sky.

      I'm grateful to have you as a friend on the journey.

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  3. Beautiful post. Love purple as a midnight lake. Good to have you home :)!

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    1. I should've had an eggplant recipe for you, Jama. I adore it in sauces and fried and especially, rolled with cheese oozing from inside.

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    2. It is past midnight and now you've got me craving baked eggplant, Sara.

      Beautiful.

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  4. So lovely. Thanks for this.

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    1. So good to have you stop by, Doraine.

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  5. Love this post...I have done all that to poetry, and more--thrown it in a skillet and tried to sear it 'til it's done..tossed it out the window of my car at 75 mph...or just left it alone for far too long. Thanks for posting!

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    1. Ha! Confessions. But I think perhaps poetry wouldn't mind the 75 mph toss---it might think it was just being launched. :)

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  6. " It even forgives our insecure, pretentious stabs when we take sharpened pencil in hand and poke holes in the paper of our lives to see what bleeds."

    Thank goodness for that.

    Thank goodness you've found your way home!

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    1. Yes, thank goodness and thank YOU for flying the poetry flag at your blog.

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  7. Lovely, lovely poem....and that last , rich, visual.

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  8. Such a beautiful post - I might never look at an eggplant the same way again! Thank you for sharing today.

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    1. I hope I don't deter you from eating it. :)

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  9. I love the way you think in metaphor. Wonderful poem, wonderful photo.

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    1. Thanks. The photo is great, isn't it?

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