wishing i hadn't left this in utah.

Also, I'm taking the GRE on Saturday.

Scary.

gracias señor borges

I'm preparing a talk for church tomorrow. I'm really missing readily accessible printers at the moment. Like, really.

Anyway, I'm using one of Jorge Luis Borges' poems as the antithesis to my talk, and I feel bad because Borges actually wrote a lot of great, uplifting poems--i.e. his poem about Iceland entitled Iceland,that begins with the lines Iceland of the seas/how lucky all men are that you exist--rather than the super pessimistic/despairingly agnostic poem I'm quoting tomorrow. So, to compensate here is Borges' poem The Just.

The Just

A man who cultivates his garden, as Voltaire wished.

He who is grateful for the existence of music.

He who takes pleasure in tracing an etymology.

Two workmen playing, in a cafe in the South, a silent game of chess.

The potter, contemplating a color and a form.

The typographer who sets this page well, thought it may not please him.

A woman and a man, who read the last tercets of a certain canto.

He who strokes a sleeping animal.

He who justifies, or wishes to, a wrong done him.

He who is grateful for the existence of Stevenson.

He who prefers others to be right.

These people, unaware, are saving the world.

Los justos

Un hombre que cultiva su jardin, como queria Voltaire.

El que agradece que en la tierra haya musica.

El que descurbre con placer una etimologia.

Dos empleados que en un cage del Sur jegan un silencioso ajedrez.

El ceramista que premedita un color y una forma.

El tipografo que compone bien esta pagina, que tal vez no le agrada.

Una mujer y un hombre que leen los tercetos finales de cierto canto.

El que acaricia a un animal dormido.

El que justifica o quiere justificar un mal que le han hecho.

El que agradece que en la tierra haya Stevenson.

El que prefiere que los otros tengan razon.

Esas personas, que se ignoran, estan salvando el mundo.

Also, Honduras is pretty.

tis the season...

It's National Poetry Month. Huzzah!

Some favorite poems:

That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection--Gerard Manley Hopkins

"I am all at once what Christ is,' since he was what I am, and

This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, 'patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,

Is immortal diamond."

The Hollow Men--T.S. Eliot

"Is it like this

In death's other kingdom

Waking alone

At the hour when we are

Trembling with tenderness

Lips that would kiss

Form prayers to broken stone"

Birches--Robert Frost

"I'd like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over"

Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form--Matthea Harvey

"Whenever we want we can pull the plug and get out

Which is not the case with our own tighter confinement

Inside the body oh pity the bathtub but pity us too"

James Joyce--Jorge Luis Borges

"Dame Señor, coraje y alegría/Para escalar la cumbre de este día "

The Rival--Sylvia Plath

"If the moon smiled, she would resemble you

You leave the same impression

Of something beautiful but annihilating"

The Mermaid--W.B Yeats

"A mermaid found a swimming lad,

Picked him for her own,

Pressed her body to his body,

Laughed; and plunging down

Forgot in cruel happiness

That even lovers drown."

Haere Ra--James K. Baxter

"We are broken by the Love of the Many

And then we are at peace

Like the fog, like the river, like a roofless house

That lets the sun stream in because it cannot help it"

You Fit Into Me--Margaret Atwood

"You fit into me

Like a hook into an eye

A fish hook

an open eye"

Some beautiful things...

My mother bought me the most wondrous Christmas present: an anthology of "the best poetry since 1900." It's fabulous, exquisitely presented, and comes with a CD of some of the poets reading their own poems. It's really something else to hear T.S. Eliot reading The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock and Sylvia Plath's recitation of Daddy.

I've also been introduced to numerous other poets, including John Betjeman whose poem The Licorice Fields at Pontefract is something quite perfect. My favorite lines were:

"Her sulky lips were shaped for sin"

and

"Oh love! for love I could not speak,

It left me winded, wilting, weak,"

Gorgeous. John Betjeman leaves me winded, wilting, weak.

(P.S. My roomie came home from Christmas break with the album Dark Was the Night. It's mind-blowing and includes artists from The Decemberists and Iron & Wine to bands I'd never even heard of but are equally grand. Check it out)

And those lips! Sun-melted chocolate, leaving marks that scorch.

The best things about summer are flowers and sun.

Happy Memorial Day!

May has been lovely to me, as I hope it's been lovely to you.

And enter Summer....

Although technically it's still Spring....

School is out, I am home, and it is Summer

(in all the practical ways at least).

I have big plans this summer most of which include watercolor and poetry. Yippee!

I am currently reading Ariel by Sylvia Plath and I LOVE it.

I've included some snippets so you will LOVE it too.

"I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted

To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty"

--Tulips

"Clouds pass and disperse.

Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?

Is it for such I agitate my heart?"

--Elm

"Their whiteness bears no relation to laundry,
Snow, chalk, or suchlike. They're

The real thing, all right: the Good, the True--"

--Magi

"Where are you going

That you suck breath like mileage?"

--The Other

"Behind the glass of this car

The world purrs, shut-off and gentle."

--Berck-Plage

"Marble lilies

Exhale their pallor like scent."

--Barren Woman

I wish I could write like that.

Blog like no one is watching. Blog like no one is listening. Blog like you've never been hurt and don't have a final paper due in 2.5 hours.

This blog post is a shout out to Lisa.

This blog post is not a shout out to how Lisa ditched out on me on what could've been an epic all-nighter of paper writing.

This blog post is not a shout out to how I slept through my alarm this morning.

This blog post is a shout out to Mark Twain.

This blog post is a shout out to Sylvia Plath.

This blog post is a shout out to 25%-off-poetry-sales-at-the-BYU-Bookstore-combined-with-poor-spending-habits.

This blog post is not a shout out to ennui/incredible lack of motivation despite dreadfully impending finals, tests, packings, movings, leavings, and missings.

Holler.

And then the sun went down, and we all lived happily ever after?

I feel like Matthew Arnold's poetry (and not Arnold's prose which is unfortunate because his prose is much more clever and in TOTAL control. Seriously, if I felt like his prose I'd be a beast in all the good ways).

Sometimes I am bit wearied by irony, and so in a less beautiful and slightly less melodramatic way I say this.

Don't you think some more answers would be nice? Or how about a good old fashioned conclusion?

Then their day was done, the sun went down, and they fell asleep with the promise of a lovely morning filled with sunshine, a good breakfast, and lots of love & fun.

Ambiguity is not always nice.


The End.

I am feeling very lovestruck...

When I read Neruda's poems I cry.

When I read Keats' poems I cry.

When I read Hopkins' poems I cry.

I think I am love with angsty and emotionally taxing love. Awesome.

Also, I am working on an "artsy/creative love reflection piece" for this awesome girlie. So I am reflecting on love a lot. Not that I didn't reflect on love before. I am just being more creatively focused on L.O.V.E.

Hopefully.