THE LIVES OF THE HEART by (jane hirshfield!)
ORIGINAL POST 04/18/2008: **
among my newest cherished additions to my inscribed book collection and collage: the lives of the heart by jane hirshfield.
posting w/her permission two of my favorites from this collection:
if the rise of the fish (pg 82)
if for a moment
the leaves fall upward,
if it seemed a small flock
of brown-orange birds
circled over the trees,
if they circled then scattered each in
its own direction for the lost seed
they had spotted in tall, gold-checkered grass.
if the bloom of flies on the window
in morning sun, if their singing insistence
on grief and desire. if the fish.
if the rise of the fish.
if the blue morning held in the glass of the window,
if my fingers, my palms. if my thighs.
if your hands, if my thighs.
if the seeds, among all the lost gold of the grass.
if your hands on my thighs, if your tongue.
if the leaves. if the singing fell upward. if grief.
for a moment if singing and grief.
if the blue of the body fell upward, out of your hands.
if the morning held it like leaves.
-now that is just plain sexy- delightful
to read silently; to say out loud.
those ~ if 's ~and long
and short alluring, suggestive sentence structures
-the sensual unanswereds
interruptive contrasts
singing and grief;
leaves falling upward.
love it.
singing and grief;
leaves falling upward.
love it.
the poet (pg 86) -this one included in her keynote speech at the pleasanton poetry, prose & art festival:
she is working now, in a room
not unlike this one,
the one where i write, or you read.
her table is covered with paper.
the light of the lamp would be
tempered by a shade, where the bulb's
single harshness might dissolve,
but it is not, she has taken it off.
her poems? i will never know them,
though they are the ones i most need.
even the alphabet she writes in
i cannot decipher. her chair--
let us imagine whether it is leather
or canvas, vinyl or wicker. let her
have a chair, her shadeless lamp,
the table. let one or two she loves
be in the next room. let the door
be closed, the sleeping ones healthy.
let her have time, and silence,
enough paper to make mistakes and go on.
-this poem is so beautiful and complete. i cry in the retyping of it. the imagery of the shadeless lamp.. the simplistic needs behind the complexities of writing simplistically: a chair, a table, a lamp, some paper
but i love this more, because the writer is female.
a wife, a mom, perhaps - because it speaks to a woman's higher needs: those loved ones.. healthy loved ones.. the experience and knowledge of these things vital
-because the heart is wide open even when the door is closed
it captures so perfectly what writers need..
table, paper, health, love, light, time, silence,
-and those two rooms; for space and mistakes...
this true across the globe
thanks again jane hirshfield! under your spells ~s.
posted by SHE @ 5:58 PM
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