When did time become so fast? Two weeks have already flown by. It was harder to keep up with the challenge this week. A couple of my days didn’t go as planned, but I’ve stuck with it and I’m proud to say I’ve read seven more poems.
My reading selections for the second week:
January 8th – Sick (I cannot go to school today!)*, by Shel Silverstein
Favorite lines:
My elbow’s bent, my spine ain’t straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
A fitting poem for the first day back to school. My children must have run across this poem before. Some of these pains sound all too familiar!
*I found the poem under both titles.
January 9th – Crossing the Moon Lines, by Chester Maynes
Favorite lines:
Horizontal, striped
sized shapes of
daydreams and the
jets in the skies
are flying hard.
I think the poet is trying to say so many things in this poem, and I admit I don’t understand it all. I want to, though. The image of daydreams broken up into horizontal shapes really struck a chord with me. In the stanza following this one, he talks about prolonging a short breath, and I want to know, why did we forget to prolong it?
January 10th – Song For Luthien Tinuviel, by Philip Dodd
Favorite lines:
Unlooked for beauty came to my eye,
elf maid dancing beneath the sky,
fair elf the lays of old had sung,
fair elf from when the world was young.
I’ve read this one three times now and I never get tired of it.
January 11th – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (or Caged Bird)*, by Maya Angelou
Favorite lines:
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing
Confession time. While I, like everyone else in the world, have heard of Maya Angelou, I had never read her. I’ve since corrected that. I actually read several of hers, but I chose Caged Bird for the blog entry this week because it spoke to me the most. I chose the above stanza because it captures powerful emotions: Despair. Rage. Longing.
*I found the poem under both titles.
January 12th – Passers-by, by Carl Sandburg
Favorite lines:
I remember lean ones among you,
Throats in the clutch of a hope,
Lips written over with strivings,
Mouths that kiss only for love.
If there was any poem I didn’t know how to feel about this week, it’s this one. Included in his anthology, Chicago Poems, this poem is written with the same gritty style as others in the book. I like it, I think. His words definitely stay with me.
January 13th – Look back on time with kindly eyes, by Emily Dickinson
Favorite lines:
Look back on time with kindly eyes,
He doubtless did his best;
Nothing hits home more to me than brutal honesty. Unless it’s directed toward me. Here, I love it.
January 14th –Fossils, by Elaine Olund
Favorite lines:
Look at the ginkgo leaves,
scattered like footprints on the
wet sidewalk, shaped like duck’s feet
rubber-ducky yellow, like childhood.
Sometimes I can’t remember things
sometimes I can’t forget.
Love the imagery. Love the paradox. Love the humanity.
Last week I told you my favorite. This week, I’ll turn it around. Which one is your favorite?
Cas Blomberg Communications 