Our challenge this month was to read Elizabeth Bishop’s poem ONE ART and to each use a line from it in a poem of our own. I love this villanelle, and not just because once, as a kid, I lost three parkas in a single winter. It’s just typical Bishop in that it’s elegant and so you don’t realize until after you finish reading it that it hit you right in the gut.
I chose to use the line “some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent” and then, instead of focusing on the losing of things I somehow veered toward gratitude and that whole notion of not appreciating what we have until it’s gone.
I’d like another week to play around with this, revise it, read it aloud, but alas. Here goes…
Some Realms
After Bishop’s One Art
By Liz Garton Scanlon
There was a time
when everything was mine –
some realms I owned,
two rivers, a continent
the beasts and boats,
the sunlight and the stones.
But I never noticed,
I never named it all
or wrote it down
until it slipped away –
every bit of it – like water.
I was left with a dry cup
and a dark candle
and a heart like a cave –
empty, with plenty
of room.
Please go read the others now.
You’ll love them…
Sara
Tricia
Tanita
Laura
Kelly
Also, go see ALL the Poetry Friday poems at Amy Ludwig Vanderwater’s place!
Oh. Oh. Oh my. This may be my favorite of all the poems you’ve ever written, and that is saying something.
Oh, Kelly! Really?? Thank you!
Oh, Liz. This one hit me in the gut. The emptiness of the cave, the cup, the heart. But the beauty of the realization you can fill them up and notice every bit of filling.
That’s the hope at least. To notice. Sometimes that’s my only intention.
Oh.
Ouch.
This is …I mean, Adam allegedly named the Things he had, but if you don’t name them, do you not own them? Maybe we none of us own anything but the empty cup and the cave, and the part of the darkness that enshrouds us…
Right? I don’t know! I think I believe that — that none of us own anything but that we can, if we take the time, appreciate and love things and people and moments. Which is better than owning them anyway….
I agree that this one slams into your heart with a zing-sting. That empty cave with room. I still feel that line echoing in my gut.
Oh, thank you, Brenda…
Really struck by what you did with Bishop’s line, Liz. “One Art” was a favorite of students performing in the Poetry Out Loud competition, and I can imagine them wanting to do this one, too.
That would be the most flattering thing EVER.
Although this may not have been your intention at all, i can’t read your poem without connecting it to our environment and our (humans) lack of responsibility to it. Your closing lines,
“a heart like a cave –
empty, with plenty
of room.”
leaves one powerfully sad, but is so effective, thanks.
Mmmm. That wasn’t my intention, but I love it…. in a hard way.
For me, the heart of this poem is this:
“the beasts and boats,
the sunlight and the stones.”
Those lines actually ARE in the heart (middle) of the poem, but more than that, they get at the way life jumbles up all the easy and the difficult, the good and the bad, and we can’t see it clearly until and unless perhaps we write poetry to hold it, you know? You’ve not lost something here, but gained a way of naming what you didn’t the first time. I love it.
I love the way you talk about this. It makes it SOUND like I knew what I was doing!! 😉
An important cautionary tale: pay attention, appreciate, CARE (about and for).
Kind of what I tell myself every morning!
This is the perfect poem for me to read right now. I just got home from a production of OUR TOWN, and your poem is a fitting echo of the performance.
Oh, yes! Thanks, Kay.
“the beasts and boats,
the sunlight and the stones.”
Absolutely stunning. Just gorgeous. I’m kinda speechless. Hug. xx
Oh, Amy. That means a lot coming from you. Thank you…
Such sadness and beauty in this one–and yet a tiny bit of hope with room to refill.
That’s what the cave can be for all of us, I hope….