Author: Jana

John‘s been trying to convince me that we should start celebrating solstice rather than Christmas–it’s his attempt to get us to open the gifts just a few days earlier. While I admire the sentiment, especially because I’m just as eager as he is to begin unwrapping, we’ll be waiting until the 25th. :)

So here’s a lovely poem from Deborah for the shortest day of the year. May it be a good one for each of you!

The Shortest Day
By Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

It seems that no one reads poetry much anymore. Poetry books don’t sell well, most contemporary poems seem trite or obtuse. But I often feel an overwhelming urge to write poems anyways–images just tumbling out of me and onto the page. I am rarely satisfied with my efforts, as these poems rarely say what I intend them to say. But I am determined to persist with poetry despite my challenges with it. So today I am posting a recent poem in celebration of Muriel Rukeyser’s birthday (ok, it was actually on Friday, but I think it still counts). As Muriel wrote in her book The Life of Poetry, “I wish to say that we will not be saved by poetry. But poetry is the type of the creation in which we may live and which will save us,” or to borrow an aphorism from Oprah, one thing I know for sure: poetry matters.

So below is a poem that I recently wrote for my monthly reading/writing group. It’s not necessarily profound, but I enjoyed writing it and I would like to share it with you. I would most like to know what your favorite lines/images/stanzas are. Thanks. :)

For two of me

I gave her my cold shoulder
which she took in her teeth
biting here and there, around the
tiny stitches of scar

we were on a knee
in adoration of a
rough patch, the burn
that never washed away

then the rounded weal,
with furrowed marks
of fruitful years
and a worthy song

a thin star there on
her bone-still spine,
lying down to sleep,
holy oil still damp there
deep in my hair

and her stepping strongly
along my way,
with mercy because
she will dream now.
~December 2006