While here at Mary’s house, Mary showed me a volume of poetry written by Oregon Poet Miriam McFall Starlin that her cousin Barrett had given her. It wasn’t a name I was familiar with but when I started reading I found a number of poems I was rather fond of.
I suppose most of us would find some resemblance to ourselves in:
PERSISTENCE
Reminder to myself – No. 1
She holds her bitterness
like a pin oak clinging
to its dead brittle leaves
through autumn gusts
through winter storms.
With mean-spirited tenacity
she refuses to see
the promise of spring.
I’m sure I liked this poem much more because of the subtitle. It’s easy to blame others for holding grudges while forgetting the grudges we ourselves hold. I know I’ve held a few longer than a year. Perhaps that’s because we refuse to take time to recognize the opportunities for new growth.
I found a lot myself and this web site in:
MATER DOLORE
If it seems there is
too much silence
too much acceptance
remember before I closed the door
the sign I hung outside it
said, “quiet,”
“please do not disturb.”
but should you decide
to enter stealthily
or by passkey,
you will find faded photographs
of anger,
single-spaced typed white sheets
of pain
and dulled black carbon pages
of sorrow
scattered everywhere ,
and off in the farthest corner
all my broken promises
and bits of my scattered mind.
I’m not unaware I often present a rather Pollyannaish outlook on life here at “In a Dark Time” but that doesn’t mean that I don’t harbor some dark thoughts about life itself and certainly about our government. Luckily you can’t see all the newspaper articles I’ve stored in Yojimbo with the intention of ranting about them . Luckily for you, the mere act of bookmarking an article knowing I can go back to it at anytime is sometimes enough to make me let go of my anger. That doesn’t mean that I still don’t get outraged by the stupid acts of people and their needless cruelty.
I’m sure some readers may find Starlin’s book too sentimental for their tastes, but I like poems like this one:
NO MAGIC
There is no magic except
sunlight or moonlight or
starlight
or mayflower or snowflake
or love.
There’s certainly no magic in life if we don’t bring it ourselves, but Starlin points out some of the magic if you’re paying attention. Hopefully, I also manage to do that with something I’ve written or photographed.