I Read Three Poems
I was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass,
Bitten by flies, fought.—-Gerontion by T. S. Eliot
No, I did not fight alongside Leonidas. But I read three poems.
I was invited to attend an evening of music and spoken word sponsored by the Mundelein Arts Commission. I brought three poems, two by respected poets, and one that I composed in 2011. The poem by Camille Rankine conveyed the sense of living under siege day to day in abandoned neighborhoods where death by random bullet is a frequent visitor. My poem composed in 2011 was about spaces that are made sacred by the lives lived, the kind acts of those who have custody of those places. I referenced Lauretta’s Italian Bakery here in Mundelein. The last poem by T. S. 
Eliot was about grief and life. The poem entitled, Aunt Helen, is about the social conventions of mourning, which offer the illusion of time suspended. But time implacably flows. The passage of time and of life as synonymous, –is revealed at the end of the poem by the Footman holding the second housemaid on his knees .
I was struck by a poem read by Maria Victoria that treated the loss of her mom in terms of the weaving of lace. it is the emptiness created by the twisted strands that give the memory of loss its form and beauty. I also was moved by Peter’s reading of Bob Dylan’s poem, Its Alright Ma I’m Only Bleeding. Peter gave me his copy of the poem to take home with me.
What’s with the flower photos? Flowers are visual poetry, from the seed, plant genes respond to light; the same life-force that quickens us all. Composure, balance, seduction, and after a season, death.
2 thoughts on “I Read Three Poems”
It was an enriching experience to be there.
Flowers photos made think of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qt57c7rnHM
We humans keep doing it……
Yes, generally speaking we humans keep doing it. But we do not always do it, and not everyone does it all the time. Betrayal and insult has not always concluded in the sacking of Troy and the enslavement of its citizens. It is easy to overlook the instances when time and patience have allowed passion to cool, and reason to weigh in. Disagreement need not metastasize into blood. To become human is a journey.