August 8, 2003
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Blue Willow
Jody Gladding
A pond will deepen toward the center like a plate
we traced its shallow rim my mother steering
my inner tube past the rushes where I looked
for Moses we said it was a trip around the world
in China we wove through curtains of willow
that tickled our necks let's do that again
and we'd double back idle there lifting
our heads to the green rain
swallows met over us later I dreamed
of flying with them we had all the time
in the world we had the world
how could those trees be weeping?
from On the Verge: Emerging Poets and Artists, March 1994
New Cambridge Press
[http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/146.html]
Today stretched like a lonely road in the desert.
"Blue Willow," made me think of my sister Ti , when we were kids and the world was a wonder to her. She marveled at the stars up in the sky and wanted to know what's beyond them. She wanted to know, at age 3, if I thought there were other forms of life and if so, what they were like. Space preoccupied her.
In our bedroom at the old house we used to turn the chairs upside down and pretend we were travelling in space, in our state-of-the-arts space shuttles. Everything seemed possible then.
Forgotten Planet
Doug Dorph
I ask my daughter to name the planets.
"Venus ...Mars ...and Plunis!" she says.
When I was six or seven my father
woke me in the middle of the night.
We went down to the playground and lay
on our backs on the concrete looking up
for the meteors the tv said would shower.
I don't remember any meteors. I remember
my back pressed to the planet Earth,
my father's bulk like gravity next to me,
the occasional rumble from his throat,
the apartment buildings dark-windowed,
the sky close enough to poke with my finger.
Now, knowledge erodes wonder.
The niggling voce reminds me that the sun
does shine on the dark side of the moon.
My daughter's ignorance is my bliss.
Through her eyes I spy like a voyeur.
I travel in a rocket ship to the planet Plunis.
On Plunis I no longer long for the past.
On Plunis there are actual surprises.
On Plunis I am happy.
from Too Too Flesh, Mudfish Individual Poet Series #3, 2000
Box Turtle Press, New York, NY
Copyright 2000 by Doug Dorph.
All rights reserved
Comments (6)
that's a good poem!
Isn't it ? I just found it. "Blue Willow."
Such sweet memories. I remember when my brother, sister and I were all very small, and we'd crawl into bed together and watch out the window at the night sky pondering all the possibilities out there. Childhood curiousity is a beautiful thing.
i like this.
Isn't that Doug Dorph poem great? I too know deep in my heart that I'd be happy on Plunis and that my life here on Earth is just part of the parallel universe we are all putting up with.
And you got them from that 180 site! Isn't that excellent? I wish we'd had the internet when I was a kid. Not only would I have learned French 10 years sooner, but I would have been swimming in good poetry from an earlier age which I am sure would have made me a more well-read and (if it were only possible) deeper person.
I've always thought I don't understand poetry. When I read poetry I'd either fall madly in love after one bewitched gaze, or I'd stare at it blankly, unsure what the secret code was.
On my last semseter at University this year, I took a poetry class with a professor for whom poetry is an absolute wonder and who treats poetry like candy, like birthday presents given by a favorite, yet a little accentric aunt. Like a magician, he'd stand in front of us and whisk secrets and spells out of his hat, unfolding the poems and playing with their ribbons. After some time, I found myself trying it out too. It seemed easy when he did it , I thought.
Now I feel like a child, too. Learning a new language. In the last six months I've read more poetry than I have in 36 years.
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