Tuesday Poem: Song of the Moth

Song of the Moth

Half the world is mute, or we are deaf to it.
What untranslated conversations are hidden from our ears?
Does the earthworm croon subterranean loves songs
as it tops and tails with its hermaphrodite mate?
What does the butterfly hear
through its beautiful delicate knees?
The column of ants marches without music
while silverfish, reducing paper to lacy fragments
consume words but have none of their own.

Sailing ships crossed the oceans where whales
sang arias, backed by a silent chorus.
The pioneers carried little. Tools broke,
clothes wore out. Our forebears with their meagre luggage
having to turn common things to uncommon uses
gathered bag moss cases, stiff and lichened,
to pluck the strings of their autoharps.
It was the only way they knew
to hear moths sing.

© Catherine Fitchett

Song of the Moth was published in Takahe 78 which came out last month. It was inspired by a bizarre piece of trivia that I encountered in a book on insects in the Mobil New Zealand Nature Series: the bag moth was "sometimes used by early settlers as a plectrum for playing the autoharp". I was looking for details for a different poem, but as soon as I saw this, I knew I had to use it somehow.

For more Tuesday Poems visit the main hub site.

And the Winners Are...

Thanks to my daughter for finding random numbers for me.
When I have your addresses, a copy of "The Nature of Things: Poems from the New Zealand Landscape" will be heading to Ron Lewis

And a copy of "Flap: The Chook Book 2" goes to Susan Rich (and a big thanks to Susan for hosting the giveaway this year, so it seemed especially appropriate to draw her name)

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls

The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807 - 1882

I have been doing a lot of clearing out recently, anticipating that sometime (supposedly quite soon, though one never knows with EQC) we will have to pack up everything and move ourselves and our belongings out of our house for two months or more while our earthquake repairs are done.

Going through old exercise books, I discovered one in which I had written poems to read to the children (long since grown up). Among them was this one.

Henry Longfellow is now regarded as a minor poet, but was enormously popular and successful in the nineteenth century. He is perhaps best known now for his Song of Hiawatha, which, along with other long narrative poems, played a major part in his success in his lifetime. This small gem above is less narrative and more lyrical. The repetition of sounds in it appeals to me - the rhymes for "falls", alliteration such as the "steeds in their stalls" which "stamp" and so on.

Tuesday Poem has been celebrating its third birthday over the past few weeks, and many of the Tuesday Poets have contributed a stanza to the birthday poem which can be found on the main hub site. Check it out, and check the side bar for more Tuesday poets' blogs.

Tuesday Poem: Invention of Everything Else, by Susan Rich

Invention of Everything Else

Once a man offered me his heart like a glass of water
how to accept or decline?

Sometimes all I speak is doubt

delineated by the double lines 
of railway tracks; sometimes

I’m an incomplete bridge, crayon red Xs extending

across a world map.
A man offers me his bed like an emergency

exit, a forklift, a raft.

The easy-to-read instructions
sequestered in the arms of his leather jacket.

Sometimes a woman needs

small habits, homegrown salad, good sex.
Instead, she cultivates cats and a cupcake maker,

attempts enlightenment— prays to leaf skeletons on her deck.

The woman and the man say yes –
say no, say maybe, perhaps.

Neither one knows what they will do
to the other.

Perhaps they’re acorns falling

on the roof, a Sunday paper, this all-embracing
ocean view.

Once a man offered me his fortune
in drumbeats and song

tuned to some interior window; something buried in blue.

-Susan Rich, first published in Cura Journal



Susan Rich blogs at The Alchemist's Kitchen, where she is hosting the Big Poetry Giveaway this year - one of many projects which celebrate National Poetry Month in the USA. Over fifty bloggers are participating in the giveaway. Leaving a comment on any of their giveaway posts will put you in the draw to win a poetry book, mailed free to anywhere in the world.

Susan is offering a copy each of two of her books, The Alchemist's Kitchen and Cures Include Travel along with one from another poet in her giveaway post here.

Susan Rich is the author of four books of poetry, including Cloud Pharmacy and The Alchemist’s Kitchen, and co-editor of The Strangest of Theatres: Poets Writing Across Borders. A recipient of awards from the Times Literary Supplement and Fulbright Foundation, she teaches at Highline Community College (Seattle). Besides her blog linked above, you can find her web site at http://www.susanrich.net.


A reminder that I am also participating in the Big Poetry Giveaway - leave a comment on my giveaway post if you want to be in to win a free poetry book from me. Remember your e-mail address or I won't be able to let you know if you have won!

For more Tuesday Poems, visit the main hub site.

Tuesday Poem: Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, by W B Yeats

Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

- William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

A short poem this week, but one I have loved for a long time.

For more Tuesday Poems, and an ongoing group effort to celebrate our third birthday, visit the main hub site.

And to participate in the Big Poetry Giveaway, scroll down to my previous post.

Tuesday Poem and the Big Poetry Giveaway

For the last couple of years, Kelli Agodon has celebrated National Poetry Month (yes, the United States gets a whole month, compared to New Zealand's National Poetry Day) by organising the Big Poetry Giveaway. This year it is being hosted on Susan Rich's blog, The Alchemist's Kitchen.

I decided to join in the fun, so leave a comment here with your contact details (e-mail address), if you would like to go in the draw. Edit: Some commenters seem to have forgotten the e-mail address, I will contact you if I can, either by e-mail or by leaving a comment on your blog, but if your only contact is Facebook or Google groups, I have no way of getting in touch with you as I am not on either.
I have two books to give away - posted free to anywhere in the world. Winners will be drawn in the week of May 1st.
1) Flap: The Chookbook 2 by myself and three friends
2) The Nature of Things: Poems from the New Zealand Landscape, a gorgeous anthology which has poems from a range of New Zealand poets along with beautiful landscape photographs from Craig Potton.

And here is one of my poems from Flap:

Gridlines

The city is a spreadsheet
laid on the plains block upon block.
There are some in their airless offices
who affect nothing.
Don't count on it.

In the hidden mathematics of the city
there are unexpected connections.
You might add a small number
at a crucial junction
and buses run late all over town.
Hum a tune and you might see
a single bird fly over,
or dancing break out in the streets.

And watch that girl with the blue hair,
when she enters the equation,
how it changes everything.

copyright Catherine Fitchett

For more Tuesday Poems visit the main hub site.

Tuesday Poem: In the Wood of Finvara, by Arthur Symons

In the Wood of Finvara

I have grown tired of sorrow and human tears;
Life is a dream in the night, a fear among fears,
A naked runner lost in a storm of spears.

I have grown tired of rapture and love's desire;
Love is a flaming heart, and its flames aspire
Till they cloud the soul in the smoke of a windy fire.

I would wash the dust of the world in a soft green flood;
Here between sea and sea, in the fairy wood,
I have found a delicate, wave-green solitude.

Here, in the fairy wood, between sea and sea,
I have heard the song of a fairy bird in a tree,
And the peace that is not in the world has flown to me.

- Arthur Symons (1865-1945)

Books still have advantages over the internet. One is that on google you find what you're looking for, but unexpected things may pop up more readily when leafing through the pages of a book. This was one of those finds. I wasn't familiar with Arthur Symons before I happened on this poems while looking for something else. More on him here.

I have been a bit remiss in posting Tuesday Poems lately, but many other Tuesday poets have been posting faithfully every week. For links to their sites, visit the main hub site. You will find a great range of contemporary and older poems.