We wake to so much sombre news these days that we must remind ourselves to hold our hearts close to the beauty and joy that this world still offers. They are to be found in nature’s bounty, played out every second on a planet that is a speck in a sea of 400 billion stars. And they can be found also in art, in literature, in music, and the thoughtful ruminations of prophets, poets and sages. Below are three poems to help reignite that fire of passion that may have turned into embers and rekindle the delight that ultimately draws from the deep wells of our being..
Squander It All
Squander it all;
hold nothing back.
The heart’s is deep well.
And when it’s empty;
It will fill again.
~ Gregory Orr
The author of more than ten collections of poetry and several volumes of essays, criticism, and memoir, Gregory Orr (b. 1947) is a master of the short, personal lyric. Orr has been the recipient of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation’s Guggenheim Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and of Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
A Brief for the Defense
We must risk delight.
We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment.
We must have the stubbornness
to accept our gladness
in the ruthless furnace of this world …
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence
as a rowboat comes slowly out and then goes back
is truly worth all the years of sorrow that are to come.
~ Jack Gilbert (1925-2012)
A self-described “serious romantic,” Jack Gilbert’s poems are mostly about love, loss, and grief that defy all expectations of sentimentality. Yet, his poems have been considered one the most profound and moving body of work to come out of American literature in generations. His collection ”Refusing Heaven” (2005) won the National Book Critics Circle Award and Gilbert’s work has also received a Lannan Literary Award for Poetry and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The final poem for today is by me, written on one of those days when everything felt like stone.
The Going
I go to where I belong,
to where I love. I go up
like a flaming bird flies
to where love is the blooming
colors of the earth.
I will try to keep going
like this until I can go
no more but back to the earth,
a shiny fleck of dust that
have improbably tasted the
intricate measure of songs.