I Stand Corrected!

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poetry, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Well, after my reflection was posted yesterday I heard not only from my sister who told me (and was correct ) that the poem I was referring to was really called “September” – but from others – one a librarian in addition to various friends and colleagues. I learned that there were several poems that include the words “October’s bright blue weather,” and that it is not the leaves that are turning brown but it is the CORN!! I spent a long phone call spouting and listening to my sister (more correctly and voluminously) recall the poems of our youth.

What made me most cheerful was the knowledge that some people really still care about poetry, that there is a lot of beauty in our past as well as in the present and that I can still learn new things at my “advanced age!” I’m smiling as I look out my bedroom window to see the loveliness of the trees and the sunshine of “October’s bright blue weather!”

Have a beautiful day!

October

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beauty, breathe, poetry, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I thought I could find everything on the internet. What a shock it was to fail in such a simple task as finding a poem on the long-awaited appropriate day for it. Here’s the story.

When we were in elementary school – called grammar school back then – we had to memorize poems. Some were of historical importance, some famous works of literature. I was always ahead of the curve in the learning because the syllabus did not change much from year to year and my sister was two grades ahead of me in school. We used to lie in bed at night, Paula practicing her poem of the week and I listening and learning, because she already knew mine. Some were more exciting than others.

We can still recite much of Barbara Frietchie, a 60-verse poem by John Greenleaf Whittier that offered a not-so-authentic window into Maryland history. How it stirred our patriotism with its Civil War theme and vivid images! (Read an amusing commentary, “Barbara Frietchie: Who Really Waved that Flag?” on the internet).

William Cullen Bryant’s, To A Waterfowl is lost to me in all his “thy’s” and “those’s,” as is Ode to a Grecian Urn, but the poem I love the most comes back on this date each year, if only with the first two verses, like an old friend coming to visit on its birthday. And today the weather is a perfect welcome for October’s Bright Blue Weather:

The goldenrod is yellow, the leaves are turning brown. The trees in apple orchard with fruit are bending down…

I’ll have to call my sister to fill in what the internet has not provided. Hopefully, between us we can remember it all. If not I have just to walk outside, look around and breathe in the beauty…

Why Not Be Polite?

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God speaking, Hafiz, listen, literature, poetry, polite, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I’m so glad I live in a time when poetry and literature from times and cultures other than my own have been made available. Especially do I love reading translations of mystical poetry like that of Hafiz (1320-1389) which express in a few words deeply felt spiritual truths or ways of relating to God that touch the cerebral western mind with new images of wild abandon. I was looking for something to wake me up with “oomph” today and was stopped by something less flowery but more thought-provoking than I expected from my search. Here it is: my advice for the day.

Everyone is God speaking. Why not be polite and listen to him? (The Gift, p. 269)