The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 1/4/08

[BlueIris]

"The Last Birthday at Home"

The last night before you were born, you were
almost complete, your mind busy,
without language, but full of motion
which would never be remembered, or know itself.
The last night that you did not exist,
nine months before that—
from here it looks almost impossible,
our path to you and not one of the others.
If we had to go back and find you again,
like families looking for each other after war—
it frightens me how close we came
to missing you. If we had not walked down that
beach, if that side of the island had not been
deserted...Like a violent, delicate job of
rescue, we got you out. Again we're in the
month of Saturn, its rings coiled loose around its
body, glittering discs of dust which we would
step through if we gave our weight to them, we
walked across them and stood at the moment of your appearing.

—Sharon Olds

[truedelphi]

1. Thank you for that poem. The Saturn mention is nice for all us Capricorns. n/t

[BlueIris]

2. It was posted "for" a certain Capricorn I know who turned 25 yesterday.

[Westegg]

3. "Politics" by W.B. Yeats...

"In our time the destiny of man presents its meaning in political terms."
---Thomas Mann

How can I, that girl standing there
My attention fix
On Roman or Russian
Or Spanish politics,
Yet here's a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there's a politician
That has both read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms.

[BlueIris]

7. Heh. That's appropriate. Thanks.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. My dear BlueIris!

The accident of birth...

Or maybe of conception!

Very nice...

I thank you!

[BlueIris]

5. C-Peg!

Yes, this is a great poem, interweaving many aspects of the speaker's life and its collision with her daughter's.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. nice.

thanks.

[BlueIris]

8. Yeah.

Sigh.

[BlueIris]

9. Kick.

[BlueIris]

10. Kick.