Since we could all stand to relax a little bit during all the election wackiness, here's a lovely little poem I heard on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac.
The Patience of Ordinary Things
by Pat Schneider
It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they're supposed to be.
I've been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The Patience of Ordinary Things
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1 comment:
I really like this, Brian; thanks for posting it.
In return, I will share my new favorite poem, which I posted on facebook a few weeks ago, but who notices anything on facebook anyway?
"A Light Breather"
by Theodore Roethke, 1953
The spirit moves,
Yet stays:
Stirs as a blossom stirs,
Still wet from its bud-sheath,
Slowly unfolding,
Turning in the light with its tendrils;
Plays as a minnow plays,
Tethered to a limp weed, swinging,
Tail around, nosing in and out of the current,
Its shadows loose, a watery finger;
Moves, like the snail,
Still inward,
Taking and embracing its surroundings,
Never wishing itself away,
Unafraid of what it is,
A music in a hood,
A small thing,
Singing.
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