The Bull in Full

Mary Oliver's The Summer Day

I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with today's poetry entry, but sometimes problems like that just solve themselves.  Joe Harvard, senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church here in Durham included this one from Mary Oliver this morning.  I'll confess that I know very little about Oliver, having only been recently introduced to her.  But it was hard to come up with a better entry for today.  "The Summer Day" lies below the fold.  (By the way, I'm still trying to figure out copyright laws for all of this, particularly for more recent poems.  My defense here is that someone else put it online first, which is my source for the text of the poem below.)

Robinson Jeffers - The Bed by the Window

Robinson Jeffers was technically a contemporary of Kipling, but it's hard to imagine a more different poet.  I encountered Jeffers in a course in college on American nature writing.  His view of nature is often times quite bleak, keeping with the literary naturalists like Stephen Crane, with a calm morbidity.  His poetry is not warm or comforting, except perhaps in the sense of a calmness with the expanse of time.  I often find myself objecting to some turn of phrase of his, but his poems never fail to leave an impression.  "The Bed by the Window" might seem a morbid choice, but it's really not remarkably more morbid than many of his poems.  (Once again, apologies for the formatting -- I'll get this figured out sooner or later...)

I chose the bed downstairs by the sea-window for a good death-bed
When we built the house; it is ready waiting,
Unused unless by some guest in a twelvemonth, who hardly suspects
Its latter purpose.  I often regard it,
With neither dislike nor desire; rather with both, so equalled
That they kill each other and a christalline interest
Remains alone.  We are safe to finish what we have to finish;
And then it will sound rather like music
When the patient daemon behind the screen of sea-rock and sky
Thumps with his staff, and calls thrice: "Come, Jeffers."

Transcribed by me from my copy of the 1965 Vintage collection, Selected Poems by Robinson Jeffers.

Kipling's The Palace

So in trying to grow a bit in how I use this funny thing called a blog, I'm going to be trying a few things that may or may not work.  The addition of the band names section is one such change.  Here's another one that I'm skeptical as to whether or not I can keep up with, but we'll give it a shot.  I'm thinking of posting poetry every Sunday, at least those that I can get access to the blog.  This may or may not work, and if this starts to get annoying, let me know.

I posted a Kipling poem at the end of my post on the cross earlier this year, and this one got in my head somehow today.  I learned both from my friend Mark Heiman, who would play them to the tunes that Leslie Fish wrote for them, which I think adds to them significantly.  (Funny aside: there was a running joke at Mark's house concerts.  At some point before one of these Mark would ask, "Do you like Kipling?" at which point one of the plants or longtimers in the audience would grudgingly reply, "I don't know.  I've never kippled before.")

Anyway, the poem is posted below the fold...