Chaos
I have always
depended on daffodils.
This spring, slugs devour golden petals
as I watch uncomprehending.
Robins batter my windows with
bloodied beaks, red breasts
dripping down the sills.
It is a time of reckoning,
when beavers raze centuries-old oaks
and nature craves a change, and
the beauty that sustained me deserts.
I stand back and await the lightning
from the looming storm, for out of chaos
comes poetry.
Keywords:
Toni Morrison says, “If there is a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” So I have. HIGHWAY TO OBLIVION.”
About Mara
A naïve Maine native, I arrived at NYU eager to become a lawyer (until l met one!) so switched to Art History (all those beautiful slides!), studied anatomy and painting at the Art Students League, wrote art criticism for “The Villager” and handled foreign...
Connections
Causes Mara Buck Supports
Kennebec Valley Humane Society, Amnesty International
Poetic Justice
Mara, I love it. And though I think in my heart I knew...I never realized it with my mind. "Out of chaos comes poetry.
Beautifully put. Thank you!
Words
Your words, Sharon, make me see my own work at a slightly different slant as well. And isn’t that why we write ---- to communicate personal thought to another who might understand?
Thank you for being that person.
Co-dependency at its finest!
Hi Mara,
What a beautiful poem! I love all of your blogs and look forward to every day with the anticipation that you have submitted a new entry.
My family has crowned me the Red Room "blog stalker." But I explain that I just love the whole Red Room experience. Even though I never get tired of writing, I had fallen into a trap of the "How to Lose the Last Ten Pounds" articles. You and the other Red Room members and authors have placed me back on track.
Thanks!
Mary Walsh
Stalk away
It is a wonderful thing to be appreciated, Mary. Thanks so much for your kind words. If this is stalking, then stalk away!
Thanks for reading. It means a lot.
Many good things come out of chaos
Thanks, Mara, for the new thought for me to take in that out of chaos comes poetry - of course! And it also takes down the path of "Mother Memoir" where out of the chaos of memory and emotion comes memoir. I think I will write a short post about that, OR I'm welcoming you to write a guest post for The Story Woman blog on the subject. Let me know if you'd like to write one.
What an honor!
Of course I would be thrilled to write a ‘guest post.’ Tell me all the particulars.
Great idea to link chaos with memoir … it does link with so many things…
A beautiful poem, Mara. As I
A beautiful poem, Mara. As I read through it several times, I love how many more images about my experience of chaos and beauty enter my mind. Your poem is an opening into possibilities and my mind is racing. The first line absolutely hooks me...and makes me feel like it could be the entry into a whole other story.
Hooked
I am so pleased that you felt I drew you in, Rebb. Sometimes I do elaborate on my poems and lengthen them into stories. You’re right. Perhaps this should be one of them. Thanks for the great comment, as always.
Do you remember that it was seven months ago yesterday that you were my first RR comment? I treasured that first comment like an encouragement card from a friend, which it was. I still appreciate it. Thanks again. ~M
Mara, I'm touched that you
Mara, I'm touched that you remember. I do remember, except, I didn't realize that yesterday marked seven months...It makes me feel much gladness reading your words. Thank you.
Depending on Daffodils...
This is going to seduce me into a Wordsworthian reverie and pull me back to read the caveats in your work, again. It's always a gamble, isn't it? And it all depends on time and place. I remember writing to a friend about this - obliquely and went to find the passage to quote here:
"You know, Thomas, I am not all that fond of the Romantic Poets or the Romantic tradition. Exquisite in small doses and perfect as an antidote to the
overbearing Augustans, but not quite the thing for me. The spontaneity is
little too contrived. They are too bright for me, those frenzied daffodils."
Everything has a flip side. Slugs and daffodils. Cheer and sobriety. Colours and blood. Chaos and poetry. It's all in the writing. Which is why we can detest Wordsworth at times. He, who wrote of, but never had to actually depend on, a frenzied daffodil. Loved your poem. ~H
Damn the Romantics, full-speed ahead…
Damn the Romantics, full-speed ahead… Harrison, you mentioned regarding the catechism that you were grateful for the form, and that you now chose your own content. Applicable as the tenet of the mature artist --- the winnowing (how Romantic!) and purging (how Punk!) of that content of others which has been absorbed throughout the period of learning and which now has been relegated to those who first created that content.
Whenever I have been asked “What do you paint?” I have been hard-pressed to answer, since my styles are many and diverse and my own. Do I carefully crosshatch in grisaille and glaze with hand-ground pigments on panels? Not anymore, my peripheral neuropathy is too annoying. Do I continue to throw paint alla prima? Not cost effective. And so on --- you get the point. I have worked within extremes, yet I have copied neither Holbein nor Tintoretto, but have eliminated that which was uniquely theirs, distilling a style of my own, after learning the tools of the trade. My literary style, whatever it may prove to be, is similar and continues its own arrogant path. I have an arsenal of tools and the content of a lifetime.
I thank you so much for recognizing that “a daffodil is not a daffodil is not a daffodil.”
Myself, I have never been a fan of the powdered wig. ~M
I sent you a message through
I sent you a message through your "contact" info on RR with the particulars, so please look for it. If you don't receive it, rattle my chain with another comment.
Gremlins
Gremlins. There are gremlins on my contact info RR page which enjoy reading my messages and then discard them with glee, while I am basically clueless. Must alert Huntington!
Easiest and most reliable to email me personally at valhkhvn@fairpoint.net.
Thanks, Lynn.