A light in the darkness

"There's a light in the darkness of everybody's life", sang Brad and Janet in my beloved "Rocky Horror Picture Show". So there is one in my annoying life today;
I got some adulation today and I must admit I relished in it. And that motivated me to write a new post.

Another point of light is a poem I came across lately. And fell in love with it. It's been such a long time since I last time read poetry, but I think it'll be good to get used to enjoying it again.


James Schuyler, Korean Mums

beside me in this garden
are huge and daisy-like
(why not? are not
oxeye daisies a chrysanthemum?),
shrubby and thick-stalked,
the leaves pointing up
the stems from which
the flowers burst in
sunbursts. I love
this garden in all its moods,
even under its winter coat
of salt hay, or now,
in October, more than
half gone over: here
a rose, there a clump
of aconite. This morning
one of the dogs killed
a barn owl. Bob saw
it happen, tried to
intervene. The airedale
snapped its neck and left
it lying. Now the bird
lies buried by an apple
tree. Last evening
from the table we saw
the owl, huge in the dusk,
circling the field
on owl-silent wings.
The first one ever seen
here: now it's gone,
a dream you just remember.

The dogs are barking. In
the studio music plays
and Bob and Darragh paint.
I sit scribbling in a little
notebook at a garden table,
too hot in a heavy shirt
in the mid-October sun
into which the Korean mums
all face. There is a
dull book with me,
an apple core, cigarettes,
an ashtray. Behind me
the rue I gave Bob
flourishes. Light on leaves,
so much to see, and
all I really see is that
owl, its bulk troubling
the twilight. I'll
soon forget it: what
is there I have not forgot?
Or one day will forget:
this garden, the breeze
in stillness, even
the words, Korean mums.


Wonderful, isn't it? "(...) its bulk troubling/ the twilight (...)" - my very favourite phrase - so imaginative and melodious.

I cannot remember now who said that it is poetry that makes us humans. Well, when I read poems like this above I feel disposed to add a bit of sense (and sensivity) to my life just with the aid of poetry.