Bonsai -- Edith Tiempo

Guest poem sent in by Genevieve Aquino

(Poem #1931) Bonsai All that I love I fold over once And once again And keep in a box Or a slit in a hollow post Or in my shoe. All that I love? Why, yes, but for the moment -- And for all time, both. Something that folds and keeps easy, Son's note or Dad's one gaudy tie, A roto picture of a queen, A blue Indian shawl, even A money bill. It's utter sublimination, A feat, this heart's control Moment to moment To scale all love down To a cupped hand's size, Till seashells are broken pieces From God's own bright teeth, And life and love are real Things you can run and Breathless hand over To the merest child. -- Edith Tiempo

      (1972)

Being from a small archipelago with such a bounty of poets writing in
English, I have always wanted to share Philippine poetry with Minstrels.
But I never summoned the courage until now, when Poem #1927 (Lowell Parker's
"The Bee Box"), reminded me again of this poem and the beautiful but simple
images of love and the human experience "scaled down" into this classic
example of Philippine Poetry in English.

I was packing up my things a week ago in preparation for moving to another
country and the rote action of putting things away reminded me of the
imagery in this poem. "All that I love/ I fold over once/ And once again".
Now that I am far from home, I feel that sharing this with others will make
me a little less homesick.

It is a universal human trait to gather all the important memories and
attempt to condense these metaphysical things into tangible bits and pieces
that one can carry around. Thus, no matter where a person might be, one can
always be reminded of home and the things they love.

Genevieve

[Links]

Edith Tiempo is a Philippine National Artist for Literature.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_L._Tiempo

A collection of Tiempo's poems:
 [broken link] http://www.geocities.com/icasocot/tiempo_poems.html

The Dover Bitch -- Anthony Hecht

Guest poem sent in by Nisha Susan

(Poem #1930) The Dover Bitch So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them, And he said to her, 'Try to be true to me, And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad All over, etc., etc.' Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read Sophocles in a fairly good translation And caught that bitter allusion to the sea, But all the time he was talking she had in mind The notion of what his whiskers would feel like On the back of her neck. She told me later on That after a while she got to looking out At the lights across the channel, and really felt sad, Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds And blandishments in French and the perfumes. And then she got really angry. To have been brought All the way down from London , and then be addressed As a sort of mournful cosmic last resort Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty. Anyway, she watched him pace the room And finger his watch-chain and seem to sweat a bit, And then she said one or two unprintable things. But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is, She's really all right. I still see her once in a while And she always treats me right. We have a drink And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year Before I see her again, but there she is, Running to fat, but dependable as they come. And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d' Amour. -- Anthony Hecht

Having recently discovered Anthony Hecht I am alternating between postures
of extreme surprise at others who have not read him and indignation at those
who have and not told me that he exists.

This particular poem is such a satisfying parody with its wide-eyed Holden
Caulfield taunts at Mathew Arnold and mock-earnestness. Hecht has also
written hilarious imitations of Horace's odes as if Horace was a
lotus-eating New Yorker who wrote for Vogue. Hecht's poems do that tricky
dance of being full of literary, even classical allusion and yet being very
accessible and fun. Perepateia for instance is a poem for anyone who likes
to go to the theatre. And the toothsome beauty of the poem is evident even
when one has no clue who ... is.

For the critics of course Anthony Hecht is an important poet because he
wrote about the Holocaust and war.

Nisha

[Links]

We've run Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach":
  http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/89.html

A well-written obit:
  http://www.breakoutofthebox.com/AnthonyHecht.htm

Biographical details
  http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/hecht/life.htm

September Twelfth, 2001 -- X J Kennedy

Guest poem sent in by a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous

(Poem #1929) September Twelfth, 2001 Two caught on film who hurtle from the eighty-second floor, choosing between a fireball and to jump holding hands, aren't us. I wake beside you, stretch, scratch, taste the air, the incredible joy of coffee and the morning light. Alive we open eyelids on our pitiful share of time, we bubbles rising and bursting in a boiling pot. -- X J Kennedy

Kennedy's poem is featured in a volume, "Good Poems for Hard Times"
selected and introduced by Garrison Keillor. Without being trite,
dramatic, verbose or clever, the twelve lines (and especially the
"aren't us" capture the essence of being spared, and the thoughts
that spin through the mind each time another image of disaster is
broadcast on a billion TV screens: What did they feel? It wasn't
me! What would I have felt? Why am I still here? More coffee?

[Links]

Academy of American Poets page on X. J. Kennedy:
  http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/634

Wikipedia entry:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X._J._Kennedy

The Workbox -- Thomas Hardy

Guest poem sent in by Jennifer McWhorter

(Poem #1928) The Workbox See, here's the workbox, little wife, That I made of polished oak.' He was a joiner, of village life; She came of borough folk. He holds the present up to her As with a smile she nears And answers to the profferer, ''Twill last all my sewing years!' 'I warrant it will. And longer too. 'Tis a scantling that I got Off poor John Wayward's coffin, who Died of they knew not what. 'The shingled pattern that seems to cease Against your box's rim Continues right on in the piece That's underground with him. 'And while I worked it made me think Of timber's varied doom; One inch where people eat and drink, The next inch in a tomb. 'But why do you look so white, my dear, And turn aside your face? You knew not that good lad, I fear, Though he came from your native place?' 'How could I know that good young man, Though he came from my native town, When he must have left there earlier than I was a woman grown?' 'Ah, no. I should have understood! It shocked you that I gave To you one end of a piece of wood Whose other is in a grave?' 'Don't, dear, despise my intellect, Mere accidental things Of that sort never have effect On my imaginings.' Yet still her lips were limp and wan, Her face still held aside, As if she had known not only John, But known of what he died. -- Thomas Hardy

My closest friend turned me on to this poem about 13 years ago and it has
haunted me ever since. When I first read it, I saw only a surface tale of a
woodworker/coffin maker who made a box for his wife from a leftover bit from
his work. But on a second read I saw a woman whose husband had killed her
lover and who was now giving her a very unmistakable message: "I'm not
fooled, and this is all you have of him now. You might be next."

It's pretty powerful story telling.

Regards,

Jenn

[Links]

Wikipedia on Hardy:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy

Christ in the Universe -- Alice Meynell

Guest poem sent in by Dr. Roger Thurling

(Poem #1927) Christ in the Universe With this ambiguous earth His dealings have been told us. These abide: The signal to a maid, the human birth, The lesson, and the young Man crucified. But not a star of all The innumerable host of stars has heard How He administered this terrestrial ball. Our race have kept their Lord¿s entrusted Word. Of His earth-visiting feet None knows the secret, cherished, perilous, The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet Heart-shattering secret of His way with us. No planet knows that this Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave, Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss, Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave. Nor, in our little day, May His devices with the heavens be guessed, His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way Or His bestowals there be manifest. But in the eternities, Doubtless we shall compare together, hear A million alien Gospels, in what guise He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear. O, be prepared, my soul! To read the inconceivable, to scan The million forms of God those stars unroll When, in our turn, we show to them a Man. -- Alice Meynell

As a convinced atheist of many years I had often wondered how Christians
reconciled their belief in an all-knowing all-powerful universe-wide God,
with what they believed to be its (his?) interest in, and manifestation in
our parochial little planet, with all its peculiarities of biology and
geography - almost all of them unlikely to be repeated anywhere else in the
universe.

Alice Meynell tackled this problem head-on, walking over it as though it
didn't exist.

Roger

[Links]

Biography:
  Alice Meynell (1847 - 1922), English writer, editor, critic, and
  suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Meynell