The Mirror: A Poem

This poem was inspired by my first semester in Hawaii. That first night, when I slept in the bedroom I had not slept in since I was four years old, was very strange and solemn to me, and I couldn't help but feel like I had disturbed a kind of sanctuary, a place where only ghosts of my past self had dwelt all these years and now had to give way to my real, living, but much older self. A mirror that has hung on the back of my bedroom door all these years made the greatest impression on me, as I have a special fondness for mirrors. I was almost afraid to look into it for the first time. I wondered if it was saddened to now reflect an adult woman's face, when it had over a decade of lonely years to obsess over my child-self's reflection. Yeah, I know, weird, but I felt sorry for it. And so I wrote a little poem. Not in my usual style, and certainly in need of polish, but it captures rather well the feeling I had at the time.

The Mirror.

There is a pale old mirror hung
Upon Grandmother's door,

It catches all the window-light
And hurls it to the floor.

The carpet pale is grey with dust,
The air is thick with haze:

Each mote reflected in the glass
Is minutes, hours, days . . .

This room belonged to Granddaughter
When she was barely four,

So long ago that the old room
Does not remember her.

But ah! That pale old mirror
In that lonely room apart

Still holds the image of the child
Within its glassy heart.

The shy little girl-image
Waits in her looking-glass world,

And dreams of brighter, sweeter times,
When she and Grandma's girl

Would draw out dreams with crayons
To hang proudly on the wall,

Or stand up in their mirrored cribs
And pretend they were tall.

The image in the mirror smoothes
Its polka-dotted dress

And passes years with memories
Of times ere loneliness.

Passes years with hoping,
Though the hoping is like pain,

That the child will come back to smile
Into the glass again.

*

And then, one darkened evening
When magenta stained the sky

And clouds all hemmed with vivid flame
Burned through the shuttered blinds;

When the glass was filled with shadows
And hardly dared now to hope more,

A young voice sounded in the hall,
And pushed open the door.

A figure stumbles in the darkness,
Groping for the light--

The mirror-child is trembling:
Something is not right--

A slender hand now finds the lamp,
A finger flicks it on--

Harsh and vivid shines the light
And the face it spills upon.

*

The mirror's frame is red with rust,
And dimmed now is its glass,

And standing now before it is
The child returned at last . . .

But years have come and lived and died;
A flowing tide of water.

The glass endured, impervious--
Not so the young Granddaughter.

A moment more she lingers there,
Entranced, but not sure why,

She stands and her reflection stands,
And they stand eye to eye.

The one looks in and the one looks out:
A woman, strange and clever.

O Mirror! Did you weep when the child
Within you vanished forever?

I Will Make You Brooches

I Will Make You Brooches

by Robert Louis Stevenson

I will make you brooches and toys for your delight

Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.

I will make a palace fit for you and me,

Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,

Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom,

And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white

In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.

And this shall be for music when no one else is near,

The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!

That only I remember, and only you admire,

Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.

I found this poem by accident in the bookshop the other day, and fell in love with it so completely that I had to scrawl it on my arm to copy into my notebook later, so as not to forget it. I am still a little surprised, though, that I never read it before. I have read anthologies of Stevenson poetry and enjoyed them, but they were always more children's poems. How come this one was left out? It makes me wonder what other poetry he wrote that I have not read. I will try to find out.

A Pause Between

Finally, my first poem in months! Composed during the middle of writing a story (yes, Laura, the next part of 'Sons of Cwendor' should be up soon). Comments are of course always appreciated and replied to . . .

A Pause Between

Whence come these words?

From what whispering tongue?

Or what grey spider shining spun

These filaments, the ghosts of sound,

The snares by which my thoughts are bound

And pinned upon the bleach-boned sheet,

Their airy beauty made concrete?

I know not how they come to me--

Like leaves snatched from a gilded tree,

Or gemstones delved from hallowed grounds,

The bright sea where my reason drowns.

Is it I who seek, or they who find,

These words which whisper in my mind?

I do not understand this mystery--

How do these words belong to me?

The Song of Shadows

And thus the poet captures what I feel to be the very essence of good storytelling. A good fantasy book or good myth or good poem always conjures up this image in my mind, sometimes fully realized, sometimes only as a ghost or a whisper. Trust the magnificent de la Mare to capture the image in poetry, however!

The Song of Shadows

by Sir Walter de la Mare

"Sweep thy faint strings, Musician,
With thy long lean hand;
Downward the starry tapers burn,
Sinks soft the waning sand;
The old hound whimpers couched in sleep,
The embers smoulder low;
Across the walls the shadows
Come, and go.

Sweep softly thy strings, Musician,
The minutes mount to hours;
Frost on the windless casement weaves
A labyrinth of flowers;
Ghosts linger in the darkening air,
Hearken at the open door;
Music hath called them, dreaming,
Home once more."

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

If you're not wearing green, consider yourself pinched. 

Of course, I should let you know that my dance teacher's Irish father, who was one of the most prominent Irish dancers in the world, always insisted that good ol' Patrick wore blue, not green, and so therefore you should be wearing blue too. I've got all my bases covered; a silver Celtic comb holding up my hair, my Claddagh ring on my finger, green Celtic knotwork shirt, green shoes, blue jeans, and green leprechaun socks :D

But seeing as this day is not just about colors, but about St. Patrick himself, I thought I'd post "The Shield of Saint Patrick" today in celebration. Later I will be celebrating with good Irish food and dance and . . . erm, a microeconomics midterm, but why not start the day by celebrating the man himself and what he stood for?

The Shield of Saint Patrick

'I bind unto myself today the strong name of the trinity,

by invocation of the same, the Three in One, the One in Three.

'I bind this day to me forever by power of faith Christ's incarnation,

His baptism in the Jordan river, his death on the cross for my salvation;

His bursting from the spiced tomb, his riding up the heavenly way,

His coming at the day of doom I bind unto myself today.

'I bind unto myself today the power of God to hold and lead,

His eye to watch, his might to stay, his ear to hearken to my need,

The wisdom of my God to teach, his hand to guide, his shield to ward,

The Word of God to give me speech, his heavenly host to be my guard.

'Christ be with me, Christ within me,

Christ behind me, Christ before me,

Christ beside me, Christ to win me;

Christ to comfort and restore me;

Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,

Christ in hearts of all that love me,

Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

'I bind unto myself the name, the strong name of the Trinity,

By invocation of the same, the Three in One, and One in Three,

Of whom all nature hath creation, eternal Father, Spirit, Word;

Praise to the God of my salvation, salvation is of Christ the Lord!'

Made Me Cry (Almost)

Everything that I have tried to say in my poetry, is captured in these few lines. When I read them, I felt my heart shiver. It will haunt my dreams, tonight.

Forgotten Language

by Shel Silverstein

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,

Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,

Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,

And shared a conversation with the housefly 

in my bed.

Once I heard and answered all the questions

of the crickets,

And joined the crying of each falling dying 

flake of snow,

Once I spoke the language of the flowers . . .

How did it go?

How did it go?

A Haiku and My Weekend

"I'm a poor author
And I want to get published

Can you help me out?"

A special haiku for Laura to write on her sweater and sport around town. Because as we both know, the best authors always get published in unlikely and unconventional ways ;)

In other news, I got my library card at last, so the library's in big trouble now, heh heh. I borrowed Gone With the Wind, The Book of Mordred, and The Brothers Karamazov, none of which I've read before, though I started Karamazov at home and now I have a chance to finish it at last.

I also stayed up until 10 o'clock last night, not something I had planned, but when some TV station is showing a four-hour film version of Moby Dick, one of my favorite books ever, how could I resist? It was very well done. I own the Gregory Peck verson, and Gregory Peck is awesome as Ahab, but this version since it was longer had some elements from the book in it that the Peck version doesn't: the madness of Pip and the mysterious 'Parsee', for instance. Queequeg was Samoan or something like that, which surprised me, but it was okay, and Tashtego looked much more like Tashtego but didn't get much screen time, which was sad. Also the whale looked, surprisingly, more fake than in the original Gregory Peck version! My favorite characters from the book are Tashtego, Queequeg, and Starbuck. Starbuck was very good in this adaptation.

Anyways, that was my weekend. I also did a lot of cleaning, mostly in the kitchen, and had my first taste of mahi-mahi. For those of you who are wondering, it's very good.

Coolest T-Shirt Anywhere

"Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense.
Refrigerator."

(Spotted on a T-shirt somebody was sporting around campus. If that doesn't send the poet in you into a fit of hysterical giggling, I don't know what will. Um, you do know the rules of haiku-writing, right?)

'If God Had Made Me a Leaf . . .'

A poem which came to me as I walked from one end of campus to the other, inspired I think by the glorious whirling green of the enormous trees arching over me. It's a little strange, and very short, but it makes sort of sense to me, and I liked it enough to remember it. Perhaps not my best poetry, but since I haven't posted any writings in so long . . . here you go.

If God Had Made Me a Leaf

If God had made me a Leaf
Dancing in a Tree

I would have Spent my Springtime
Trembling
At my inevitable Fall.