Sometimes after a long day at work and an exhausting day of extroversion, I need two things: beer and poetry.
I know that beer and poetry don't often go together...it's usually hard liquor or wine. But the thing is, when one drinks alone, a bottle of wine is too much. The single bottles of wine are not very good...and those half-bottles from Whole Foods are great, but I don't usually have those lying around. Beer is perfect for these days because I can have just one and relax.
Poetry is perfect because it forces me to slow down and think differently. I can't delve into a poem and keep thinking as I have all day at work. I have to allow myself to be affected by it and drawn into the metaphors and imagery. Emily Dickinson is one of my favorites to get lost in...partly because the world of poetry was really opened up to me through her poems, but also because the more I read, the many more layers beg to be uncovered.
I share with all of you one of my favorites:
You cannot put a Fire out
A thing that can ignite
Can go, itself, without a Fan
Upon the slowest night
You cannot fold a Flood
And put it in a Drawer
Because the winds would find it out
And tell your Cedar floor
I really don't understand poetry at all, but I found this thing about fire, and I like it, so here it is:
ReplyDeleteFire burns and is merciless.
Fire takes no prisoners.
Because
Fire is the prisoner.
A flame cannot live without consuming.
A flame cannot live with others.
A flame cannot live without others.
A flame cannot intertwine with others unless...
They are also fire.
For a flame in love with anything else would kill—or be killed.
Fire is the prisoner.