It drives me NUTS sometimes how underappreciated poetry is. Sure, some of it is unapproachable and just doesn’t speak to us. But if we sample enough of it, we begin to find our favorite poets. The ones who resonate with us. The ones who speak our metaphoric language and remind us that we’re not alone.
Sometimes I come across a poem that is so powerful in its simplicity it makes me pause, take a deep breath and feel grateful that someone had the skill and guts to write down their experience. I found this little jewel in American Life in Poetry. See what you think:
Out of the World There Passed a Soul
— by Sherod Santos
The day of my mother’s funeral I spend clearing out
her overgrown flower beds, down on my knees
in the leaf rot, nut shells, tiny grains of sandlot sand
spilling from the runoff gullies. The hot work was to see
not feel what had to be done, not to go on asking,
not to wonder anymore. Full from scraps I’d found
at the back of the refrigerator, her mongrel dog
lay curled on a stone and watched me work.
It was Sunday. The telephone rang, then stopped,
then rang again. By the end of the day, I’d done
what I could. I swept the walk, put away the tools,
switched on the indoor safety lamps, and then
(it hardly matters what I think I felt) I closed
the gate on a house where no one lived anymore.
Does this particular poem speak to you? Besides poetry, what things do you think are underappreciated? Art? Music? Integrity? Please feel free to share a poem you love in the comments section, or email it to me and I will post it.
P.S. If you’ve read my books, you know I have a thing for secrets. Every book I’ve written revolves around a secret of some kind. The Secret Sense of Wildflower is one of those books, and I am currently hard at work revising a new novel called Temple Secrets, which is absolutely FULL of secrets. So in honor of secrets, here’s one of my best-kept ones: I am a published poet. Two of my poems have appeared in small literary magazines.
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This reminds me a little too much of after my mother died. Did the same things.
Funny you should post about poetry. I’ve been wanting to ask you about a poet you sent me an article mentioning a long time ago. I wanted to investigate him more but I don’t remember the name and the article disappeared. It was about how we need privacy and silence to meditate in the world, and a poet was mentioned who’d written poems based on photographs…one was about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Don’t remember much more than that I’m afraid which is why I’ve hesitated mentioning it to you since it’s so vague. I sent a copy of the article about needing to be alone to Deborah Eisenberg since it reminded me of her but I never got a reply on it, possibly because she needed to be alone. 😉
> If you’ve read my books, you know I have a thing for secrets.
Have you noticed the way I’ve reworked my front page for Entertaining Welsey Shaw?
https://entertainingwelseyshaw.com/
Well, off to go start planning a sequel…
That’s a great new opening, John. I love the last line. It sums it up beautifully.
I have no idea what poet you are talking about. Wish I did. It sounds like something that would catch my eye.
Enjoy planning! 🙂
I revisited the Rijksmuseum today (where the sequel starts) via my guidebooks, so I had fun, yes. 🙂
I love poetry, although it’s difficult sometimes to go through the emotional changes required to read it. I just got through Mary Oliver’s “Dog Songs” (or that may not be the precise title but you know what I mean.) and it was totally endearing and enchanting.
I know what you mean, Liz. Good poetry engages the emotions, as well as the mind. I LOVE Mary Oliver. We may be kindred spirits.