Nevertheless
you've seen a strawberry
that's had a struggle; yet
was, where the fragments met,
a hedgehog or a star-
fish for the multitude
of seeds. What better food
than apple seeds - the fruit
within the fruit - locked in
like counter-curved twin
hazelnuts? Frost that kills
the little rubber-plant -
leaves of kok-sagyyz-stalks, can't
harm the roots; they still grow
in frozen ground. Once where
there was a prickley-pear -
leaf clinging to a barbed wire,
a root shot down to grow
in earth two feet below;
as carrots from mandrakes
or a ram's-horn root some-
times. Victory won't come
to me unless I go
to it; a grape tendril
ties a knot in knots till
knotted thirty times - so
the bound twig that's under-
gone and over-gone, can't stir.
The weak overcomes its
menace, the strong over-
comes itself. What is there
like fortitude! What sap
went through that little thread
to make the cherry red!
Marianne Moore 1944
AND:
who are you,little i
(five or six years old)
peering from some high
window;at the gold
of november sunset
(and feeling:that if day
has to become night
this is a beautiful way)
e.e. cummings 1963
YES there are two poems of the week this week - I will close read the first one but both are for my sister. They are for all of you and for me too, but first they are for my sister. Well, e.e. cummings is both a repeat and a shout-out to my cast! Our play is soon, and I am so excited to watch them go up. Anyway, because I want my self tomorrow to like my self tonight, I am going to bed. I will have to do "Nevertheless" later - it's an incredibly rich and complex poem, and Marianne Moore is one of the most important poets of the 20th Century, so it would do everybody some good to read her poems. They are hard but beautiful. Enough lecturing for tonight! Goodnight! (Oh and by the way, this is late because I was in Montana on Sunday and Monday about 150 miles from internet. So sorry! I should have thought ahead and sent it out earlier. Ah! Goodnight!)
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