In A Disused Graveyard -- Robert Frost

Guest poem submitted by R. Lakshminarainan:

(Poem #1472) In A Disused Graveyard The living come with grassy tread To read the gravestones on the hill; The graveyard draws the living still, But never anymore the dead. The verses in it say and say: "The ones who living come today To read the stones and go away Tomorrow dead will come to stay." So sure of death the marbles rhyme, Yet can't help marking all the time How no one dead will seem to come. What is it men are shrinking from? It would be easy to be clever And tell the stones: Men hate to die And have stopped dying now forever. I think they would believe the lie. -- Robert Frost

Frost is quite indisputably the master of images. I can still remember
the intense reverie of meaning I experienced, when I first read this
poem. We have heard and heard too much, about death - its ultimacy, its
indefatigability and the utter hopelessness. We have heard a few say how
one must succumb to it with little resistance, and another - how one
must "rage against it." In all its varied essences and flavours, death
stands apart with one single unchanging attribute - the finality.

Which is why these fifteen lines shine stark in significance. Frost in a
single image, hooks the finality of images of death in one big question
mark, where neither the mortal men nor the waiting grave will achieve
the final victory. The graveyard, the elemental metaphor for a fullstop,
has brimmed without space, and now the roles are reversed. Though the
living still come and visit loved ones, the graveyard will never again
see them dead. The eternal wisdom in what the grave takes pride in
uttering to generations of men - "The ones who living come today/ To
read the stones and go away/ Tomorrow dead will come to stay." is
shattered. The certitude of the marble grounds is now jarring because,
neither the graveyard nor the wisdom has escaped what it celebrates so
tirelessly - death itself. And to the nether-land that wonders in
shrouting suspicion, "What hate men in me? Why don't they come to my
laps anymore?" one might just say "Men hate to die. And they will not
anymore."

As one tries to explain and the other to believe in this
mock-hypothesis, is not Death and all its allied emotions and images
failed metaphors? Do we really see Death and does wisdom really dawn or
are we merely fooling ourselves like the graveyard?

R. Lakshminarainan.

In the Middle of the Road -- Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Guest poem submitted by Nisha Pillai:

(Poem #1471) In the Middle of the Road In the middle of the road there was a stone there was a stone in the middle of the road there was a stone in the middle of the road there was a stone. Never should I forget this event in the life of my fatigued retinas. Never should I forget that in the middle of the road there was a stone there was a stone in the middle of the road in the middle of the road there was a stone. -- Carlos Drummond de Andrade

        Translated by Elizabeth Bishop.

I came across this poem recently because a colleague recommended it to
me. It sounds beautiful in the original Portuguese, much better than the
English version, says my Brazilian friend. Since the English version is
the only one I understand, who am I to argue? :-)

The poem is simplicity itself. I choose to think that it symbolizes an
event that altered the course of the poet's life, but that's just me.

Here it is in Portuguese:

 "No meio do caminho"

 No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra
 tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho
 tinha uma pedra
 no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra

 Nunca me esquecerei dêsse acontecimento
 na vida de minhas retinas tão fatigadas.
 Nunca me esquecerei que no meio do caminho
 tinha uma pedra
 tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho
 no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra.

        -- Carlos Drummond de Andrade

[Biography]

Andrade, Carlos Drummond de, 1902-87, Brazilian poet. The son of
landowners, he worked as a journalist before earning (1925) a degree in
pharmacology. In 1928 Andrade became a civil servant while working as a
newspaper editor. His first volume of poems, Alguma poesia [some poetry]
(1930), exhibited many characteristics of Brazilian modernism. Andrade
is considered the major Brazilian poet of his time; his works include
Poesias [poems] (1942), A rosa do povo [the people's rose] (1945), Claro
enigma [clear enigma] (1951), A vida passada a limpo [life in a new
copy] (1959), and As impurezas do branco [the impurities of white]
(1973). He also wrote essays and award-winning translations of European
writers.

Nisha.

Caught in the Rain on My Way to the Sandy Lake -- Su Shi (Su Dong-po)

Guest poem submitted by Rohit Jaisingh:

(Poem #1470) Caught in the Rain on My Way to the Sandy Lake Listen not to the rain beating against the trees. Why not walk slowly while chanting at ease? Better than a saddle I like sandals and cane. I'd fain In a straw cloak, spend my life in mist and rain. Drunken, I am sobered by the vernal wind shrill And rather chill. In front, I see the slanting sun atop the hill; Turning my head, I see the dreary beaten track. Let me go back! Impervious to rain or shine, I'll have my own will. -- Su Shi (Su Dong-po)

        Translated by Xu Yuan-zhong.

I came across Su Shi, most unexpectedly, in a equity research report.
Not the sort of place one routinely bumps into good poetry, but there it
was. Many thanks to Y. K. Fu, the author of that report.

Su Shi's versatility is quite amazing. While he is best know for his
satirical poems in which he takes broad swipes at the administration,
some of his other work is remarkably beautiful.

This poem struck a strong personal chord. How many times have we taken
the road less travelled, the less popular alternative and had to contend
with tremendous adversity? Suddenly, friends give you a wide berth and
you feel less than welcome. It tests your resolve, it is so easy to fall
in line. Su Shi himself faced a near-fatal beating, exile, two jail
sentences and poverty in harsh backwaters for his outspoken views.

Eventually, integrity and strength in one's convictions is all that
matters. And when life later proves you right, it tastes very sweet
indeed.

Rohit.

Links:
1. Biography
[broken link] http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/Floor/2391/essays/essay29.htm

2. Su Shi (1037-1101) and the Humor of Resistance, David McGraw
[broken link] http://mcel.pacificu.edu/aspac/papers/scholars/mcgraw/mcgraw.htm

Song for the Rainy Season -- Elizabeth Bishop

Guest poem submitted by Dustin Smith:

(Poem #1469) Song for the Rainy Season Hidden, oh hidden in the high fog the house we live in, beneath the magnetic rock, rain-, rainbow-ridden, where blood-black bromelias, lichens, owls, and the lint of the waterfalls cling, familiar, unbidden. In a dim age of water the brook sings loud from a rib cage of giant fern; vapor climbs up the thick growth effortlessly, turns back, holding them both, house and rock, in a private cloud. At night, on the roof, blind drops crawl and the ordinary brown owl gives us proof he can count: five times -- always five -- he stamps and takes off after the fat frogs that, shrilling for love, clamber and mount. House, open house to the white dew and the milk-white sunrise kind to the eyes, to membership of silver fish, mouse, bookworms, big moths; with a wall for the mildew's ignorant map; darkened and tarnished by the warm touch of the warm breath, maculate, cherished; rejoice! For a later era will differ. (O difference that kills or intimidates, much of all our small shadowy life!) Without water the great rock will stare unmagnetized, bare, no longer wearing rainbows or rain, the forgiving air and the high fog gone; the owls will move on and the several waterfalls shrivel in the steady sun. -- Elizabeth Bishop

In "Song for the Rainy Season," Bishop's celebrated observational and
descriptive techniques -- her famous "eye" -- are trained both on a
cherished, worn house she lives in and on that house's close,
subtropical surroundings. As usual, insight grows subtly from
accumulated details of the physical world; Bishop never thrusts her
meaning into the reader's face. Like the poem's insights, its loose, or
open, rhyme scheme -- a scheme Bishop would develop more and more --
creeps into one's awareness as the poem goes on, and during later
readings. Thumpingly regular, metronomic rhyming is forgotten in favor
of a more flexible and subtle rhyme scheme. The poem's short lines
establish a breathless rhythm. They also insure that every word stands
out by not losing its power in a line crowded with other words: As
Bishop apparently reveres the place she's describing, she necessarily
reveres each word she uses to describe it. (Reading the poem aloud is a
good way to illuminate this notion of breathlessness and reverence via
short lines. Also, the poem's short lines and unexpected rhymes create a
particularly dynamic rhythm when read aloud.) ... One of the greatest
poems by one of the greatest poets. (She deserved that Pulitzer.)

Dustin Smith
Brooklyn Heights, New York.

Song Against Natural Selection -- Edward Hirsch

Guest poem submitted by Y. Lee:

(Poem #1468) Song Against Natural Selection The weak survive! A man with a damaged arm, a house missing a single brick, one step torn away from the other steps the way I was once torn away from you; this hurts us, it isn't what we'd imagined, what we'd hoped for when we were young and still hoping for, still imagining things, but we manage, we survive. Sure, losing is hard work, one limb severed at a time makes it that much harder to get around the city, another word dropped from our vocabularies and the remaining words are that much heavier on our tongues, that much further from ourselves, and yet people go on talking, speech survives. It isn't easy giving up limbs, trying to manage with that much less to eat each week, that much more money we know we'll never make, things we not only can't buy, but can't afford to look at in the stores; this hurts us, and yet we manage, we survive so that losing itself becomes a kind of song, our song, our only witness to the way we die, one day at a time; a leg severed, a word buried: this is how we recognize ourselves, and why. -- Edward Hirsch

A celebration of human imperfection both exultant and melancholy, fierce
and vulnerable.  Somehow Hirsch turns the inevitable tragedy of loss
into a uniqueness holding its own value.  Pshaw to 'survival of the
fittest'; the worthiest are those who have suffered and yet continue on.
Beyond the message, I love the relentless rhythm of this piece that ever
draws the eyes to the next line, the hint of past personal pain ("the
way I was once torn / away from you"), and the role of speech, with a
dropped word comparable to a severed limb.

Edward Hirsch is an active poet and a recipient of the MacArthur
"genius" Fellowship; he teaches and also seems to write a fair amount of
prose on the subject of poetry.

Y. Lee