Bibliophiles Unanimous! Valentine’s Day Special: LOVE POEMS
February 14, 2021 - February 27, 2021
Paolo and Francesca by Anselm Feuerbach
Valentine’s Day Special! LOVE POEMS.
We read love poems. Joining our merry band of lovers were Jude Russell, Martha Ragland, Nancy Scharbach, Jeffrey Sher, Dave Duncan, Ken Margolis and Johnny Stallings. Katie Radditz couldn’t come, but she sent some poems. Jeffrey got the ball rolling with a poem by Theodore Roethke, and later added one by William Carlos Williams:
I Knew a Woman
I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).
How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing we did make).
Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).
Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I’m martyr to a motion not my own;
What’s freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways).
–Theodore Roethke
Here’s Theodore Roethke reading the poem:
*
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the ice box
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
–William Carlos Williams
*
Jude played Offenbach’s Barcarolle for us, sung by Anna Netrebko & Elīna Garanča, from Tales of Hoffmann:
*
Dave read “Re-Statement of Romance” by Wallace Stevens:
Re-Statement of Romance
The night knows nothing of the chants of night.
It is what it is as I am what I am:
And in perceiving this I best perceive myself
And you. Only we two may interchange
Each in the other what each has to give.
Only we two are one, not you and night,
Nor night and I, but you and I, alone,
So much alone, so deeply by ourselves,
So far beyond the casual solitudes,
That night is only the background of our selves,
Supremely true each to its separate self,
In the pale light that each upon the other
throws.
–Wallace Stevens
*
Martha read “Wish in a War Zone” by Amy Gerstler, from Bitter Angel, published in 1990, and “The Shirt” by Jane Kenyon:
Wish in a War Zone
Somewhere under the weather
snores our drugged hero:
a gladiator or astronaut,
lying in a fringed hammock
in his mother’s garden,
waiting to be wakened
and loosed upon the world.
Quick, into my arms before
the next tremor hits.
Just beneath these monsoons,
an aurora borealis trembles.
Tucked into its luminous
gunbelt, a change of luck,
an abrupt windfall tunes up,
just for us. Soon,
instead of zinging bullets
we’ll find ourselves drenched
in concertos. I have no
authority to comfort
you, though I try.
If all this is to vanish,
If you and I are lost,
set loose, wounded,
to wander among uncomplaining
trees, fingering their lightly
haired, sticky little leaves,
then hand me my camera.
I must take pictures.
–Amy Gerstler
*
The Shirt
The shirt touches his neck
and smooths over his back.
It slides down his sides.
It even goes down below his belt—
down into his pants.
Lucky shirt.
—Jane Kenyon
*
Ken read a section of a poem by Bertolt Brecht.
*
Katie sent these poems:
Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts
in the pomegranate flowers.
If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.
–Rumi
*
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
—e. e. cummings
*
I Loved You Before I Was Born
I loved you before I was born. It doesn’t make sense, I know.
I saw your eyes before I had eyes to see. And I’ve lived longing for your ever look ever since. That longing entered time as this body.
And the longing grew as this body waxed. And the longing grows as the body wanes. The longing will outlive this body.
I loved you before I was born. It doesn’t make sense, I know.
Long before eternity, I caught a glimpse of your neck and shoulders, your ankles and toes. And I’ve been lonely for you from that instant. That loneliness appeared on earth as this body. And my share of time has been nothing but your name outrunning my ever saying it clearly. Your face fleeing my ever kissing it firmly once on the mouth.
In longing, I am most myself, rapt, my lamp mortal, my light hidden and singing.
I give you my blank heart. Please write on it what you wish.
–Li-Young Lee
*
What We’re Doing Here
This is why we are here— not merely to survive but to fall in love with the white-breasted hawk and the rainbow fish, with the lonely sidewalk and the shadows of ourselves, fall in love with the hands of the woman wearing yellow and the girl who loves chocolate and the boy who loves cars and the man who makes us want to be a better version of ourself. We are here to fall into unmanageable love— to love beyond reason, beyond fact, beyond certainty. We are here to lose all our ideas about love and know it as the next choice we make, the next word we say, the next invitation we offer ourselves. We are here to love the world and each other the way whales love water, the way blue loves a peacock, the way night blooming jasmine loves night.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
*
I read “The Sun Rising” and the last part of “To His Mistress Going to Bed” by John Donne. And “We Two, How Long We Were Fool’d” by Walt Whitman. And this gem from William Blake:
Love to faults is always blind,
Always is to joy inclin’d,
Lawless, wing’d & unconfin’d,
And breaks all chains from every mind.
—William Blake
*
And my own poem, “wake up, heart!”:
wake up, heart!
wake up, heart!
wake up and love everyone and every thing
love the unlovable
the unhappy old men who start the wars
the geniuses who collapse the economy
the heads of the big corporations who ruin the earth
they need love, too
why else would they do stuff like that?
we all want to love and be loved
we all need to love and be loved
love everything that moves
and everything that won’t budge
love the person who is reading or listening to this poem
you might start with the easy ones
passing dogs
laughing children
fluffy white clouds
all the spring flowers shouting “love me!”
practice on the easy ones
until you get so good at it that you accidentally love the weird and scary homeless people,
the criminals,
the people whose views differ from yours
—before you have time to think about it
heart, you were born for love
mr. brain sometimes tells you not to
“don’t love that one,” he says, “that one doesn’t deserve it”
“don’t be a fool”
forgive mr. brain
he can’t help it
he’s always making distinctions between this and that
he needs a hug
you know better
you know that the thing to do is just to love
to wake up and love without limit
–Johnny Stallings
At the end I talked a bit about Romeo and Juliet. When they first meet, these two amazing young lovers spontaneously compose a sonnet–a sure sign that they are well-matched:
ROMEO
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO
O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do–
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
