rebecca's misc.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

3 more fave poems

Prayer

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer

utters itself. So, a woman will lift

her head from the sieve of her hands and stare

at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth

enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;

then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth

in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales

console the lodger looking out across

a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls

a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -

Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

Carol Ann Duffy

The Times Saturday Review, 1992

I REMEMBER NEW YORK

tall buildings
taxi horns honking
hotdogs on Flatbush Avenue
buttons on elevators
mushroom, pepperoni, and extra cheese pizza
I remember New York.

Marvin Frenel
Grade 2, Hoffman-Boston Elementary School

The Room on That Day

The room on that day,
With them in it,
Brings light out of them,
Mother and infant.
Bounces it off every corner
And then brings it back to them,
Those two, one cradled in the other.

Tess Michelitch, 5th Grade
McKinley Elementary School

a favorite poem

What the Living Do

by Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.

And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.

It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.

For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those

wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.

Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want

whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,

say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:

I am living. I remember you.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

for still life class: symbolism

Audrey Flack, Marilyn (Vanitas). Here's a 20th century painting that nods to the older European tradition of the "Vanitas" still life: paintings that treat a particular Christian belief in the meaninglessness or transience of the material world. These paintings include such symbols as fruit and flowers (showing signs of decay, or with insects), snuffed out candles, bubbles, skulls, etc. Below, the floral still life by Dutch artist Rachael Ruysch celebrates the beauty of nature and nods to the cycle of life and death (see what critters you can find).