So today I thought, what if I wrap my blog with parameters? Bring back Music Mondays and add on Poetry Friday? Maybe the guidelines will encourage me to post.... we'll see how it goes. Right now, onwards to the inaugural Poetry Friday entry.
The first poem is from "Against Love Poetry" a collection by my favorite poet, Eavan Boland - if you don't know who she is, you should. She sees love from a different angle than most poets I've been exposed to.... honestly, I am in awe of her talent. Added Bonus: She's Irish and wrote back to me right away when I emailed her a bunch of questions for a research paper a few years ago.
What famous poet do you know of that would be that awesome? None. That's how many.
Quarantine
In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking-they were both walking-north.
She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.
In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.
Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:
Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and a woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.
Boland, Eavan, 2001. Against Love Poetry. New York, NY: Norton & Company Inc.
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking-they were both walking-north.
She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.
In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.
Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:
Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and a woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.
Boland, Eavan, 2001. Against Love Poetry. New York, NY: Norton & Company Inc.
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