My husband (of Irish descent) and I traveled to Ireland several times in the last decade. We loved to explore little villages. One day we happened upon a beautiful cemetery on a hill overlooking the village. As we were walking through I took a photo of a tombstone( I don’t remember taking it) but the word “butterfly” ( my spirit animal of
sorts) must have caught my eye. This was 8 years ago. My husband died tragically 11 months ago. A few weeks after he died a photo of him popped up on my phone. My heart was so shattered. I looked to see where it was taken. I clicked on the photo and right next to it was the photo of the tombstone that was inscribed:
“Do not weep at my grave, for I am not there, I’ve a date with a butterfly to dance in the air, I’ll be singing in the sunshine, wild and free , playing tag with the wind while I’m waiting for thee. “
This “message” to me was a true gift. One of many “signs “ I have gotten from my best friend of 41 years. I have memorized this to keep close to my heart. When a group of words come alive and speak to your soul then they are meant to be carried with you on your journey in life.
For me, that last sentence is so familiar. I find quotes, poems, etc that hit my heart and make it throng. I have a list (much longer since finding On Being!) I keep on my phone. Sometimes I memorize these bits of wisdom and beauty without even realizing.
A shiver went through my body when reading the inscription on the grave - what a gift! Thank you for sharing. I hope and pray you are finding the ways that ease the lose of your best friend and that butterflies abound on your journey forward. Theresa
So beautiful. Definitely lodging that somewhere in memory. It reminds me of a song I learned from Bread and Puppet Theatre that was sung every year for decades as the opening to their annual pageant performance. It's an old shape note song called Captain Kidd II and, while memorizing poems does not come easy to me, songs are another matter altogether. This song became one of the lullabies I sang to my son and it's a nice companion to what you've shared:
a transl by Robert Bly ends with “Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God? He is the breath inside the breath.” Not sure what’s most consistent with the original (translating something like poetry - I can’t imagine how challenging!) , but I do like this translation. The bread inside the breath.
oh, how i love Tagore and Kabir. You've reminded me, apropos of Pádraig's request, that i've committed to memory many of Tagore's Stray Birds - only one or two lines each, making them rather easy to learn by heart.
It has been years since I thought about that pageant opener up in Glover. Thanks for the reminder. I'm with you on memorizing songs. For me, most the ones that stick are from the 60s and earlier.
I don’t know...most of the really deep lyrics are from the 80’s. 😉 Kidding! I’m pretty sure I know the lyrics to every Pink Floyd song (once David Gilmour joined). My favorite of theirs, besides the entire Dark Side album, was “Echoes” live at Pompeii. Nothing better than a band in that era, jamming away for 25 some-odd minutes.
Such wonderful memories of you evoke of listening to Pink Floyd. And, incidentally, Brain Damage and Eclipse also make quite lovely lullabies - though i did draw stares at times from the neighbours as I pushed the stroller around the neighbourhood (beg, borrow or steal" were some of my son's first words). I had an admittedly odd lullaby playlist (it also included Science-Fiction/Double Feature which was guaranteed to knock the wee one out cold in seconds flat and it's a song i simply love singing).
Ahh, this lovely little piece has always needled me just a bit, as a person who has gone blackberry picking with great joy and found much wonder in those common bushes aflame perhaps with both God AND blackberries.
There is a subtle yet important difference between memorizing something and learning something by heart. Memorizing being an activity of the intellect, while learning something by heart is, well, engaging the heart. In my experience, asking someone to memorize something strikes fear in them but when asked to learn something by heart a softening happens and they open up to the possibility. This is certainly true for me when faced with the desire to commit an entire work by Chopin to memory. If I approach it from my heart, where the music lives, then it is possible. My intellect alone could never remember all that is being said in the music.
I relate to this. I went through a time when I was encouraged to memorize large portions of the Bible. I memorized Ephesians and almost all of Hebrews, and I was told that memorizing God’s Word would change me, but it never really felt that way, and I think it’s exactly what you said. It became an exercise of intellect. There are smaller verses, written prayers by others, and experiences of hope and peace that have moved me and changed me way more than the months I spent memorizing these long passages.
Oooh that’s an interesting point! Where were you when I was a music student? 😉 What normally happens when I learn a poem is that I memorize it first, then learn it by heart. But changing the language of our actions is powerful. I’m going to think about a little differently about “memorization” now.
Of course! Learning a piece of music by heart pulls the same heart strings as learning a poem. It becomes part of muscle memory - something embedded in the body that bubbles up almost in spite of intellectual memory. Muscle memory always surprises me because I grew up learning to trust only my mind. Thanks.
This is perfectly said. I never thought of it this way, but it is so true. Keeping something in your heart is very different than just memorizing something in your head! I will say this tho, we taught our kids to memorize verses from the Bible knowing that it might not mean anything for them in the moment. The reason is that we knew that what is memorized in your head will often pop up at times of distress or trouble. For example, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love cast out fear." (1st. John 4:18) This scripture has been a comfort to me many times, as with the recent fires we've had in N. California which we fled from. Our kids all know this scripture, and though not having taken its meaning to heart when memorizing it, during that fire we all were reciting and remembering the truth of loves power to conquer fear driving away from the flames just behind us! All that to say, both things are important...the discipline required to memorize, and also the selection and value of what we choose to commit to memory. Thanks so much for explaining this in a way that really brought fresh meaning to me personally on the value of memorizing and ...saving it in your heart most of all. ♥️
This is SO great Tracy! Thank you for giving me a different way of bringing poetry into my being. I’m going to stop trying to memorize poems now. Now, in favor of letting the heart do its work of love and gratitude.
What a wonderfully astute observation about the difference between memorizing something and learning it by heart. I hadn’t thought of it that way, and it deeply resonates with me. Thank you for sharing that perceptive observation.
Thank you for naming this distinction. As a young man I loved to play trumpet. There was music I memorized for competitions, and then there was music I learned by heart. That’s the music I would return to and play with joy.
After so many years of loving this poem, I committed it to memory (that's an interesting phrase, now that I think of it) last year and now speak it quietly to myself whenever I'm walking our pup and spot a large V of Canadian geese "high in the clean blue air," or the cloudy late afternoon air, or whatever kind of air may inhabit the sky at that moment. During these moments I've often had insights that never occurred to me while reading the words on the page.
Just the other day, I decided to embark on another favorite poem: "Saint Francis and the Sow," by Galway Kinnell. I wonder if having the poem stored in memory will help me understand the one line that's always puzzled me: "to put a hand on its brow / of the flower" Why "of the flower?" The syntax feels off, but was obviously very intentional. I'm curious to see how my perception will evolve.
If my experience with "Wild Geese" is any indication, memorizing a poem, for me, allows me to live with it as if with a good friend, walking with it, breathing with it, learning from it, and often feeling consolation from it.
I wonder if that is the most loved poem in recent history, or if it’s special within the On Being community? I wish every human would read that poem, and just... be more human. ♥️
Beautiful! Also - I find that I can read favorite poems over and over again and each time they feel like a new discovery - a new land. The same holds true for music and visual art. It's like a full body wow :)
I have committed the poem Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye, to memory. So many beautiful lines but the section that made me want to memorize the whole of it was this: Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
The image of that wide, wide cloth that we all weave our sorrow into at one point or another, helped me to understand sorrow as both purposeful and communal.
Tami, thank you for the reminder of “Kindness.” Hearing Naomi talk about the circumstances under which the poem came to be (she says she did not write it; it simply came to her, and her hand wrote with the stub of a pencil she had in her pocket) was one of the most meaningful learnings I have ever had. My ongoing hope for the world is that humanity may someday understand the truth that is expressed in the words you quoted.
Oh, Tami...this is a poem that has supported me for so many years on my grief journey. I have read it many times in my hospice work and these words are truly universal. The size of the cloth, yes; once we realize that incredible size, we know we are not alone.
Yes, yes, I am so fond of this poem. I am rediscovering poetry lately, and leave collections all over the house to pick up in passing. Whyte's bright yellow book cover for this 'House of Belonging' often catches my eye.
For an evening storytelling concert a friend once asked me if i would recite Shelley's Ozymandias. I think this was perhaps because I had once quoted the two "spoken" lines as part of a story I was telling: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" These are great lines. And I was pleased at the invitation to recite Shelley. But, while I know hundreds of stories, these are remembered in quite a different way from a memorized poem. And i've always aspired to memorize poems but never quite gotten around to devoting the necessary work to it. So here was my opportunity to tick at least one wee box, as it were. And how hard can memorizing 14 lines be, I thought. I'd never memorized more than the opening line and the two above. So i accepted the challenge, as modest as it was. I walked around with that poem in my head for a few weeks. And, truly, it wasn't that hard to memorize. Come the week of the performance, my father, who'd suffered from Parkinson's for some 20 years, had bypass surgery which resulted in a collapsed lung which landed him in intensive care. Visiting him, I had never seen him so frail. We were not close. My father was something of a patriarch (not in a good way). But visiting family in hospital is simple duty. When I saw him (the day I was to perform Ozymandias) he said to me, "It's easier when you visit. Your mother, your sisters worry so much. It's easier with you." A strange and complicated thing to say. He fell asleep. I marked student papers. He woke suddenly, looked at me, and said:
Three little ponies didn’t like their hay.
Said to one another, "Let’s run away.”
The first one said, “I’ll cantor.”
The second one said, “I’ll trot.”
The third one said, “I’ll run, if it’s not too hot.”
So they all ran away with their tails in the air.
But they couldn’t jump the fence,
So they’re all still there.
He'd memorized many little poems in his youth and had often recited them as I was growing up. But i'd never heard that one. And it was delightful. And for a moment I had a glimpse of the boy he'd been. He was, his entire life, powerfully reticent to speak about his childhood and, from him, I learned almost nothing about it. But now I asked him about the poem and, while he couldn't remember where he had learned it, he spoke of his boyhood in Scotland for a bit and then the meds took over. That evening, i mounted the stage to recite Ozymandias. It was an audience filled with friends. I took a breath and found the poem utterly gone from my head. I looked at the host who had invited me there. He knew that my father was in hospital. He looked at me kindly. I took another breath and closed my eyes and could only see the ruin of my father's body, recovering though he was. And then I found the lines and recited the poem though I can't really remember having recited it. I think I did okay. I uttered a word of thanks to Shelley words seemed prescient in that moment. My father is gone now, his suffering ended. But you've reminded me, Pádraig, of his ability, no doubt learned in school as a boy, to memorize poems and wee songs. And though our relationship was troubled, to say the least, I know that my ability to stand before an audience is owed somewhat to him and I will take your reminder and his example as inspiration to memorize more poems.
I’m so touched by this story, Chris... this precious exchange between father and son. Thank you 🙏🏾. (prompted by Pádraig’s prompt, this morning I asked my father - who has Parkinson’s disease - about something he has committed to memory, knowing he’s rattled off passages from Shakespeare many times before, and he proceeded to recite an Urdu shayri (poem), a gorgeous and radical one too, and then a couple of others! He was so animated in the recitation and in discussing the beauty of the lines and the philosophical questions they speak to.....). I love how the poem your father recited was an opening into learning more about his life.
What a lovely idea, Mona! My mom has Parkinson’s, too. She is so animated when she talks about her childhood. The fog clears for a moment, and the purest, clearest view of who she really is shines out.
Thank you, Mandy! It is quite something, isn’t it, to bear witness to parents aging, and the varied effects of illness…. I find it so very difficult, and constantly have to remind myself to go to these places — childhood memories, poems and songs remembered - and not focus so much on asking my father what the body feels like (which i am habituated to do as a health care practitioner, thinking I might have some tool to help), but remembering sometimes we can bring the inner sunshine out by inviting a journey to these memories…. Thank you for sharing, Mandy, and sending warm wishes to you and your mom.
Thank-you. And i'm so pleased to hear that you were able to speak with your father and enjoy his reminiscences. And your description of him gladdens my heart. It's amazing how poems learned when young endure in memory even when age and infirmity can cause decline in such faculties. And you remind me that my father, when he remembered this pieces from his youth, always shared them with evident joy.
Thank you, Chris, for your sharing your compelling experience with performing Ozymandias after sitting with your father. The poem of the three ponies gives your experience the sweetest centerpiece.
I'm thinking of an era of my life that I remember now as heartily thriving. I was incanting daily e.e. cummings' I thank You God for most this amazing. It's terribly well known, but I'll offer the words a chair in this conversation:
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
As soon as the question was issued, I lept internally to recite it and it's magic unleashed its welcoming effect on me as ever. So, thank you for the reminder.
The Journey by Mary Oliver was my poem of 2022 to memorize. Little by little, it grew from just a few lines in my heart, to the entire poem by the end of the year. One of the greatest gifts I could give myself is to have this poem live in my heart. Working on Wild Geese right now… the first poem I memorized, in the 4th grade, was “I wandered lonely as a cloud” by Wordsworth. From that moment forward my love of daffodils has been steady and enduring. Beautiful post Padraig.
You are only free when you realize you belong no place—you belong every place—no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great,” Angelou told Bill Moyers in a 1973. This reminds me that I belong to me, and I will not negotiate who I am to fit someone’s idea of how I should be.
Lisa, I totally identify with that sentiment. Once you are unmoored against your will from your birthplace, in your heart you are an eternal alien, even if official documents state otherwise. Maya's statement is useful to maintain a healthy perspective on life.
Thanks for your words - they are a tonic. I like to remember these lines by Rev Vivian Gruenenfelder, A leaf goes where the wind blows, No choices, Only bowing, To the Infinite Light and Treasure, That is within us all.
It may be a little cliché to quote one of the most well known of all poems, but the last lines of Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day" often carry me through when I need to be reminded how "precious" our time is and that productivity for productivity sake is folly.
"Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
- Mary Oliver
It reminds me to love what I love for it's own sake. Walking. Looking. Noticing. Reading. Hearing. Drawing. Napping! Oh the kindness of a good nap! And also at times it says "Just get on with it! You know what to do next! Just begin. The path always leads somewhere and yields something! Even if it's only to bring you to the next path."
I keep the poem Late Fragment by Raymond Carver nearby and in my heart. I loved that poem and read it to my partner and it became his in many ways.
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
I started saving poems in a folder labeled simply poems in my email. I would come across one that spoke to me and place them there. I don’t have any idea how many are in it now. I would share them with my partner when I found them. They aren’t organized in any fashion so when I am looking for one, I usually get distracted by another one.
Thank you, Judith. I’m 78, and hope to find the strength and resilience to deal with the coming changes. Poetry has always been a refuge for me, and I trust that it will continue to be.
I memorized this shortly after you read this on Poetry Unbound Padraig. I had recently lost my soulmate then and this poem has helped me hold him close across time and space until we meet again.
My husband (of Irish descent) and I traveled to Ireland several times in the last decade. We loved to explore little villages. One day we happened upon a beautiful cemetery on a hill overlooking the village. As we were walking through I took a photo of a tombstone( I don’t remember taking it) but the word “butterfly” ( my spirit animal of
sorts) must have caught my eye. This was 8 years ago. My husband died tragically 11 months ago. A few weeks after he died a photo of him popped up on my phone. My heart was so shattered. I looked to see where it was taken. I clicked on the photo and right next to it was the photo of the tombstone that was inscribed:
“Do not weep at my grave, for I am not there, I’ve a date with a butterfly to dance in the air, I’ll be singing in the sunshine, wild and free , playing tag with the wind while I’m waiting for thee. “
This “message” to me was a true gift. One of many “signs “ I have gotten from my best friend of 41 years. I have memorized this to keep close to my heart. When a group of words come alive and speak to your soul then they are meant to be carried with you on your journey in life.
For me, that last sentence is so familiar. I find quotes, poems, etc that hit my heart and make it throng. I have a list (much longer since finding On Being!) I keep on my phone. Sometimes I memorize these bits of wisdom and beauty without even realizing.
yes! the folder of quotes and poetry has grown exponentially since meeting On Being and Poetry Unbound!
So lovely and comforting. Thanks for writing and telling us this story.
How very lovely! I am so glad the words stayed with you and came to serve as a balm for your soul.
Incredible!
Credible!
I am so deeply sorry for your loss. xo
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing this, Patty. I am very sorry for the loss of your husband and best friend. Hugs
Beautiful, Patty...
Oh Patty! My heart swells and my tears well as I read of this true gift to you. --Emily
A shiver went through my body when reading the inscription on the grave - what a gift! Thank you for sharing. I hope and pray you are finding the ways that ease the lose of your best friend and that butterflies abound on your journey forward. Theresa
thank you for that comforting message Theresa.
Patty, thank you for sharing that lovely, lovely story.
My heart goes out to you. Thank you for sharing this wonderful imagery.
Patty, thank you for sharing your story. I'm so glad you found words that comfort you and give you strength.
Thank you Carol.
I love these events of mystery and magic. You were given a very special one you will hold in your heart and never forget
Thank you for sharing this story with us. ♥️
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"Earth's crammed with Heaven.
And every common bush afire with God.
Only those who see it take off their shoes.
The rest sit around and pick blackberries."
I like this because I am reminded that I can't show amazing things to people, if they're not ready to see them. And, that's okay. ☺
So beautiful. Definitely lodging that somewhere in memory. It reminds me of a song I learned from Bread and Puppet Theatre that was sung every year for decades as the opening to their annual pageant performance. It's an old shape note song called Captain Kidd II and, while memorizing poems does not come easy to me, songs are another matter altogether. This song became one of the lullabies I sang to my son and it's a nice companion to what you've shared:
Through all this world below,
God is seen all around,
Search hills and valleys through,
there He’s found
In growing fields of corn,
The lily and the thorn,
The pleasant and forlorn,
All declare God is there;
In meadows dressed in green,
There He’s seen.
How beautiful you sang this to your son! It reminds me of one of my favorites of Kabir: (transl by Rabindranath Tagore):
where dost thou seek Me?
Lo! I am beside thee.
I am neither in temple nor in mosque:
I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash:
Neither am I in rites and ceremonies,
nor in Yoga and renunciation.
If thou art a true seeker,
thou shalt at once see Me:
thou shalt meet Me in a moment of time.
Kabîr says, "O Sadhu! God is the breath of all breath."
a transl by Robert Bly ends with “Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God? He is the breath inside the breath.” Not sure what’s most consistent with the original (translating something like poetry - I can’t imagine how challenging!) , but I do like this translation. The bread inside the breath.
That's beautiful, and immediately reminds me of Rumi.
Some short memorised Tagore lines that have given me much solace are:
'I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.'
oh, how i love Tagore and Kabir. You've reminded me, apropos of Pádraig's request, that i've committed to memory many of Tagore's Stray Birds - only one or two lines each, making them rather easy to learn by heart.
It has been years since I thought about that pageant opener up in Glover. Thanks for the reminder. I'm with you on memorizing songs. For me, most the ones that stick are from the 60s and earlier.
I don’t know...most of the really deep lyrics are from the 80’s. 😉 Kidding! I’m pretty sure I know the lyrics to every Pink Floyd song (once David Gilmour joined). My favorite of theirs, besides the entire Dark Side album, was “Echoes” live at Pompeii. Nothing better than a band in that era, jamming away for 25 some-odd minutes.
Such wonderful memories of you evoke of listening to Pink Floyd. And, incidentally, Brain Damage and Eclipse also make quite lovely lullabies - though i did draw stares at times from the neighbours as I pushed the stroller around the neighbourhood (beg, borrow or steal" were some of my son's first words). I had an admittedly odd lullaby playlist (it also included Science-Fiction/Double Feature which was guaranteed to knock the wee one out cold in seconds flat and it's a song i simply love singing).
I love the thought of your neighbors watching and listening to you in dismay! Oh that me laugh. Your son is a very lucky boy! 😉
How wonderful, to have a lullaby for your son! Thank you for sharing it. Love it!
This is beautiful and inspirational, I love the images. It tells us God is in all things, in the flowers and the thorns
Ahh, this lovely little piece has always needled me just a bit, as a person who has gone blackberry picking with great joy and found much wonder in those common bushes aflame perhaps with both God AND blackberries.
Beautiful!
Gorgeous! Thank you for this, Jesse! And, perhaps sitting around picking blackberries is afire with god too! ;)
Indeed, Mona!
And, also thank you for sharing the Tagore piece. His work is often striking...a connection that's difficult to describe.
This is so much like Hopkin's poem! Love it!
So true, Jesse...
My thoughts on memorizing:
There is a subtle yet important difference between memorizing something and learning something by heart. Memorizing being an activity of the intellect, while learning something by heart is, well, engaging the heart. In my experience, asking someone to memorize something strikes fear in them but when asked to learn something by heart a softening happens and they open up to the possibility. This is certainly true for me when faced with the desire to commit an entire work by Chopin to memory. If I approach it from my heart, where the music lives, then it is possible. My intellect alone could never remember all that is being said in the music.
I relate to this. I went through a time when I was encouraged to memorize large portions of the Bible. I memorized Ephesians and almost all of Hebrews, and I was told that memorizing God’s Word would change me, but it never really felt that way, and I think it’s exactly what you said. It became an exercise of intellect. There are smaller verses, written prayers by others, and experiences of hope and peace that have moved me and changed me way more than the months I spent memorizing these long passages.
Thanks, Tracy. Learning by heart, IMHO, allows you to own the work, to internalize it.
Oooh that’s an interesting point! Where were you when I was a music student? 😉 What normally happens when I learn a poem is that I memorize it first, then learn it by heart. But changing the language of our actions is powerful. I’m going to think about a little differently about “memorization” now.
Of course! Learning a piece of music by heart pulls the same heart strings as learning a poem. It becomes part of muscle memory - something embedded in the body that bubbles up almost in spite of intellectual memory. Muscle memory always surprises me because I grew up learning to trust only my mind. Thanks.
I grew up the same way -- only trusting my mind. Now I realize that trusting the heart as well is essential to my human experience.
What a beautiful way to explain the difference. Memory can sure play tricks while the heart, i believe. holds what is constant. Thank you, Tracy
This is perfectly said. I never thought of it this way, but it is so true. Keeping something in your heart is very different than just memorizing something in your head! I will say this tho, we taught our kids to memorize verses from the Bible knowing that it might not mean anything for them in the moment. The reason is that we knew that what is memorized in your head will often pop up at times of distress or trouble. For example, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love cast out fear." (1st. John 4:18) This scripture has been a comfort to me many times, as with the recent fires we've had in N. California which we fled from. Our kids all know this scripture, and though not having taken its meaning to heart when memorizing it, during that fire we all were reciting and remembering the truth of loves power to conquer fear driving away from the flames just behind us! All that to say, both things are important...the discipline required to memorize, and also the selection and value of what we choose to commit to memory. Thanks so much for explaining this in a way that really brought fresh meaning to me personally on the value of memorizing and ...saving it in your heart most of all. ♥️
What a beautiful example of the gifts and value of committing things to memory and the journey from mind to heart. Thank you for sharing.
This is SO great Tracy! Thank you for giving me a different way of bringing poetry into my being. I’m going to stop trying to memorize poems now. Now, in favor of letting the heart do its work of love and gratitude.
What a wonderfully astute observation about the difference between memorizing something and learning it by heart. I hadn’t thought of it that way, and it deeply resonates with me. Thank you for sharing that perceptive observation.
Thank you for naming this distinction. As a young man I loved to play trumpet. There was music I memorized for competitions, and then there was music I learned by heart. That’s the music I would return to and play with joy.
I love this ... from my heart, not my head.
That is a lovely and helpful observation.
So true, Tracy, and so beautifully stated!
Yes, Tracy. Beautifully said.
Well spoken. Thank you
I've learnt it by heart....yes a beautiful phrase indeed. Who wouldn't want to do that.
The Wild Geese, Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
I love this poem. My favorite yoga instructor of all time would recite it during shavasana. Beautiful.
After so many years of loving this poem, I committed it to memory (that's an interesting phrase, now that I think of it) last year and now speak it quietly to myself whenever I'm walking our pup and spot a large V of Canadian geese "high in the clean blue air," or the cloudy late afternoon air, or whatever kind of air may inhabit the sky at that moment. During these moments I've often had insights that never occurred to me while reading the words on the page.
Just the other day, I decided to embark on another favorite poem: "Saint Francis and the Sow," by Galway Kinnell. I wonder if having the poem stored in memory will help me understand the one line that's always puzzled me: "to put a hand on its brow / of the flower" Why "of the flower?" The syntax feels off, but was obviously very intentional. I'm curious to see how my perception will evolve.
If my experience with "Wild Geese" is any indication, memorizing a poem, for me, allows me to live with it as if with a good friend, walking with it, breathing with it, learning from it, and often feeling consolation from it.
I can feel the tension easing in my shoulders every time I tell myself those lines ~
I wonder if that is the most loved poem in recent history, or if it’s special within the On Being community? I wish every human would read that poem, and just... be more human. ♥️
Beautiful! Also - I find that I can read favorite poems over and over again and each time they feel like a new discovery - a new land. The same holds true for music and visual art. It's like a full body wow :)
I have committed the poem Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye, to memory. So many beautiful lines but the section that made me want to memorize the whole of it was this: Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
The image of that wide, wide cloth that we all weave our sorrow into at one point or another, helped me to understand sorrow as both purposeful and communal.
Tami, thank you for the reminder of “Kindness.” Hearing Naomi talk about the circumstances under which the poem came to be (she says she did not write it; it simply came to her, and her hand wrote with the stub of a pencil she had in her pocket) was one of the most meaningful learnings I have ever had. My ongoing hope for the world is that humanity may someday understand the truth that is expressed in the words you quoted.
Karen, thank you for bringing up the origin story. So powerful.
Thank you Tami. I too hold this poem close to my daily prayers/Buddhist meditations, evoking Kuan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion… 🙏🏼
Love this Judith.
Oh, Tami...this is a poem that has supported me for so many years on my grief journey. I have read it many times in my hospice work and these words are truly universal. The size of the cloth, yes; once we realize that incredible size, we know we are not alone.
Thank you for sharing this Bonnie and for the very important and sacred work you do.
I love reading your emails every Sunday morning. The line I go back to is from David Whyte’s poem “House of Belonging.”
“I want to love all the things it has taken me so long to learn to love.”
Yes, yes, I am so fond of this poem. I am rediscovering poetry lately, and leave collections all over the house to pick up in passing. Whyte's bright yellow book cover for this 'House of Belonging' often catches my eye.
What a lovely idea Candice.
This line always makes my eyes moist.
Graciewilde - It certainly does touch a tender place deep within. P. S. I love your name. :)
Thank you! I love my name too!
For an evening storytelling concert a friend once asked me if i would recite Shelley's Ozymandias. I think this was perhaps because I had once quoted the two "spoken" lines as part of a story I was telling: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" These are great lines. And I was pleased at the invitation to recite Shelley. But, while I know hundreds of stories, these are remembered in quite a different way from a memorized poem. And i've always aspired to memorize poems but never quite gotten around to devoting the necessary work to it. So here was my opportunity to tick at least one wee box, as it were. And how hard can memorizing 14 lines be, I thought. I'd never memorized more than the opening line and the two above. So i accepted the challenge, as modest as it was. I walked around with that poem in my head for a few weeks. And, truly, it wasn't that hard to memorize. Come the week of the performance, my father, who'd suffered from Parkinson's for some 20 years, had bypass surgery which resulted in a collapsed lung which landed him in intensive care. Visiting him, I had never seen him so frail. We were not close. My father was something of a patriarch (not in a good way). But visiting family in hospital is simple duty. When I saw him (the day I was to perform Ozymandias) he said to me, "It's easier when you visit. Your mother, your sisters worry so much. It's easier with you." A strange and complicated thing to say. He fell asleep. I marked student papers. He woke suddenly, looked at me, and said:
Three little ponies didn’t like their hay.
Said to one another, "Let’s run away.”
The first one said, “I’ll cantor.”
The second one said, “I’ll trot.”
The third one said, “I’ll run, if it’s not too hot.”
So they all ran away with their tails in the air.
But they couldn’t jump the fence,
So they’re all still there.
He'd memorized many little poems in his youth and had often recited them as I was growing up. But i'd never heard that one. And it was delightful. And for a moment I had a glimpse of the boy he'd been. He was, his entire life, powerfully reticent to speak about his childhood and, from him, I learned almost nothing about it. But now I asked him about the poem and, while he couldn't remember where he had learned it, he spoke of his boyhood in Scotland for a bit and then the meds took over. That evening, i mounted the stage to recite Ozymandias. It was an audience filled with friends. I took a breath and found the poem utterly gone from my head. I looked at the host who had invited me there. He knew that my father was in hospital. He looked at me kindly. I took another breath and closed my eyes and could only see the ruin of my father's body, recovering though he was. And then I found the lines and recited the poem though I can't really remember having recited it. I think I did okay. I uttered a word of thanks to Shelley words seemed prescient in that moment. My father is gone now, his suffering ended. But you've reminded me, Pádraig, of his ability, no doubt learned in school as a boy, to memorize poems and wee songs. And though our relationship was troubled, to say the least, I know that my ability to stand before an audience is owed somewhat to him and I will take your reminder and his example as inspiration to memorize more poems.
I’m so touched by this story, Chris... this precious exchange between father and son. Thank you 🙏🏾. (prompted by Pádraig’s prompt, this morning I asked my father - who has Parkinson’s disease - about something he has committed to memory, knowing he’s rattled off passages from Shakespeare many times before, and he proceeded to recite an Urdu shayri (poem), a gorgeous and radical one too, and then a couple of others! He was so animated in the recitation and in discussing the beauty of the lines and the philosophical questions they speak to.....). I love how the poem your father recited was an opening into learning more about his life.
What a lovely idea, Mona! My mom has Parkinson’s, too. She is so animated when she talks about her childhood. The fog clears for a moment, and the purest, clearest view of who she really is shines out.
Thank you, Mandy! It is quite something, isn’t it, to bear witness to parents aging, and the varied effects of illness…. I find it so very difficult, and constantly have to remind myself to go to these places — childhood memories, poems and songs remembered - and not focus so much on asking my father what the body feels like (which i am habituated to do as a health care practitioner, thinking I might have some tool to help), but remembering sometimes we can bring the inner sunshine out by inviting a journey to these memories…. Thank you for sharing, Mandy, and sending warm wishes to you and your mom.
Thank-you. And i'm so pleased to hear that you were able to speak with your father and enjoy his reminiscences. And your description of him gladdens my heart. It's amazing how poems learned when young endure in memory even when age and infirmity can cause decline in such faculties. And you remind me that my father, when he remembered this pieces from his youth, always shared them with evident joy.
💞🙏🏾
Thank you, Chris, for your sharing your compelling experience with performing Ozymandias after sitting with your father. The poem of the three ponies gives your experience the sweetest centerpiece.
Thank you for sharing this, Chris. I’m glad you had that moment of delight with your father. ♥️
I'm thinking of an era of my life that I remember now as heartily thriving. I was incanting daily e.e. cummings' I thank You God for most this amazing. It's terribly well known, but I'll offer the words a chair in this conversation:
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
As soon as the question was issued, I lept internally to recite it and it's magic unleashed its welcoming effect on me as ever. So, thank you for the reminder.
oh, I love this one too, the words jumbled and alive like a child running into the day - so bright and hopeful. Thank you.
What a great reminder! I used to have this hanging on the wall in my room as a teenager. I've missed it.
I'd never linked e.e.cummings with GM Hopkins, but this ecstatic poem does that for me. Thanks for sharing it
thank you, Lisa! incanting this daily - I can imagine how it was magical!
The Journey by Mary Oliver was my poem of 2022 to memorize. Little by little, it grew from just a few lines in my heart, to the entire poem by the end of the year. One of the greatest gifts I could give myself is to have this poem live in my heart. Working on Wild Geese right now… the first poem I memorized, in the 4th grade, was “I wandered lonely as a cloud” by Wordsworth. From that moment forward my love of daffodils has been steady and enduring. Beautiful post Padraig.
I’m working with this poem right now, listening to David Whyte’s reading as lectio. Definitely sensing the prompt to memorize!!
You are only free when you realize you belong no place—you belong every place—no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great,” Angelou told Bill Moyers in a 1973. This reminds me that I belong to me, and I will not negotiate who I am to fit someone’s idea of how I should be.
Lisa, I totally identify with that sentiment. Once you are unmoored against your will from your birthplace, in your heart you are an eternal alien, even if official documents state otherwise. Maya's statement is useful to maintain a healthy perspective on life.
Rilke words have mattered often to me:
Let everything happen to you:
Beauty and terror.
Just keep going.
No feeling is final.
Yes! I have that one posted on my fridge. It helps me be less afraid of life.
Same!
Thanks Graciewilde. As Richard Rohr says, everything belongs. IMHO, we are all on a Vision Quest and each event brings a necessary lesson.
Thanks for your words - they are a tonic. I like to remember these lines by Rev Vivian Gruenenfelder, A leaf goes where the wind blows, No choices, Only bowing, To the Infinite Light and Treasure, That is within us all.
It may be a little cliché to quote one of the most well known of all poems, but the last lines of Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day" often carry me through when I need to be reminded how "precious" our time is and that productivity for productivity sake is folly.
"Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
- Mary Oliver
It reminds me to love what I love for it's own sake. Walking. Looking. Noticing. Reading. Hearing. Drawing. Napping! Oh the kindness of a good nap! And also at times it says "Just get on with it! You know what to do next! Just begin. The path always leads somewhere and yields something! Even if it's only to bring you to the next path."
The Vision Quest is endless...until it finally ends...
I keep the poem Late Fragment by Raymond Carver nearby and in my heart. I loved that poem and read it to my partner and it became his in many ways.
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
I started saving poems in a folder labeled simply poems in my email. I would come across one that spoke to me and place them there. I don’t have any idea how many are in it now. I would share them with my partner when I found them. They aren’t organized in any fashion so when I am looking for one, I usually get distracted by another one.
Yes, I love that poem and keep it close by. I also have a folder (actually two) for poems . They can be so inspiring.
The Layers by Stanley Kunitz... Every word but especially "How shall the heart be reconciled to its great of losses?"
I have walked through many lives, some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
Thanks Diane, I recite this line daily being an octogenarian- I am not done with my changes 🔔
Thank you, Judith. I’m 78, and hope to find the strength and resilience to deal with the coming changes. Poetry has always been a refuge for me, and I trust that it will continue to be.
Thanks for this gem Diane.
"Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me."
Thank you, Diane :-)
Yes! That "yet" carries us
Emily Dickensons’ 1383
Long Years apart—can make no
Breach a second cannot fill—
The absence of the Witch does not
Invalidate the spell—
The embers of a Thousand Years
Uncovered by the Hand
That fondled them when they were Fire
Will stir and understand—
I memorized this shortly after you read this on Poetry Unbound Padraig. I had recently lost my soulmate then and this poem has helped me hold him close across time and space until we meet again.