Dawn & Poetry
I woke to an intensely bright day, strong gusts bend the trees. I understand that the central States further west are in the path of dangerous storms today. Life is such a combination of light, life, and hazard.
I read several poems this morning, poems that I have chosen to read tomorrow evening at a local coffee shop. A friend asked me to take part in the event. I agreed. I wrote a few poems some years ago and I will read one of my old poems. It is enough for me to write prose daily because I am not ready to work as a poet. Poetry demands that every word be selected with the utmost care. Every word to do it’s work, just it’s work and no more; every word placed properly in company with other words, –a neighborhood of language cultivated over a life time of experience to clarify the emotion of being human. It is an art form of the heart primarily, rather than of reason. The logic required is different.
Skillful prose writers are closely kin to poets. Story telling that really works, discloses the emotional logic organic to a place and a time.
At the Friday evening event I will try my best to do justice to T. S. Eliot’s poem, Aunt Helen. I will also read a contemporary poem by Camille Rankine, Aubade. I pray that I will deliver the words with the heart they deserve.
