Tonight I am grateful for the written word, specifically tonight I am so grateful for poetry. I used to fancy myself a poet, and in some ways I am. The problem was that almost all of my poems rhymed and of course as everyone knows it’s not really cool to write poems that rhyme. Of course back in the olden days, rhyming poetry was quite commonplace, but in the 60s and 70s when I was growing up and coming of age, the coolest, hippest people wrote poetry that didn’t rhyme. It was much more chic than writing verse that did. Then one day something magical happened: I started playing the guitar and realized that my rhyming poetry just happened to lend itself very well to being set to music. And a songwriter was born. You see, my rhyming poetry was actually song lyrics–if you haven’t noticed, most song lyrics rhyme. It was no small comfort to realize that I wasn’t a bad poet, I was an pretty good lyricist.
So in celebration of poets and poetry, I offer with sincere gratitude two poems I really love. The first, Invictus, by William Ernest Henly became a favorite of mine particularly during some of the more challenging days in my recent life. Invictus reminded me that no matter how challenging things became for me I would stand strong, in spite of feeling bludgeoned by my life circumstances. It gave me great comfort and hope to say, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” If you read my blog over the past two years, you are likely to see Invictus many times during the months after the series of unfortunate events that sideswiped me in 2011. I needed to encourage myself; I needed a rallying cry. This poem became that for me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody,but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
The other poem is one by Mary Oliver that I likewise came to discover and appreciate for a completely different reason than Invictus had. My friend Mary introduced me to the poem when, as I was struggling to figure out what I was going to do with myself. She posed to me the question at the end of the poem that continues to resonate with me, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I love the concept of one’s life being described as “wild and precious.” At the time Mary asked me that question that the poet Mary Oliver posed, I would have definitely characterized my life as wild, though perhaps not in the way the poet intended. But the combination of wild and precious still makes me smile. There have been many times of late when I’ve stood at the threshold of decision and asked myself that same question. I encourage each of us to ask it often. Enjoy The Summer Day and be grateful for your own favorite poet or songwriter whose words and ideas inspire you.
The Summer DayWho made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
