Poetry Friday: Catching Up

Thanks to Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect for hosting Poetry Friday today.

I have catching up to do.  These are the Veteran Day cards that were sent off to Applebees  and the Veteran’s Hospital for November 11.

This is Allan Barger who served in World War II.  He is the 90+ father of my dear friend and colleague, Shirley Grabner.

And now for a poem.  Today’s offering is in light of the world events this past week.  Heartsick doesn’t even begin to express how I feel.  I found this at The Poetry Foundation. Wow!  The language and the white space.

Making Peace

BY DENISE LEVERTOV

A voice from the dark called out,

             ‘The poets must give us

imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar

imagination of disaster. Peace, not only

the absence of war.’

                                   But peace, like a poem,

is not there ahead of itself,

can’t be imagined before it is made,

can’t be known except

in the words of its making,

grammar of justice,

syntax of mutual aid.

                                       A feeling towards it,

dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have

until we begin to utter its metaphors,

learning them as we speak.

                                              A line of peace might appear

if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,

revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,

questioned our needs, allowed

long pauses . . .

                        A cadence of peace might balance its weight

on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,

an energy field more intense than war,

might pulse then,

stanza by stanza into the world,

each act of living

one of its words, each word

a vibration of light—facets

of the forming crystal.

Denise Levertov, “Making Peace” from Breathing the Water. Copyright © 1987 by Denise Levertov. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.

Source: Breathing the Water (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1987)

Happy Friday.

Happy Poetry.

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