Sunday, May 30, 2010

The Gleaners

Here's another poem I wrote this last fall semester. It's based on the painting "The Gleaners" by Jean-François Millet.

The Gleaners

Did Millet know?
Did he know what he had painted?
Of course, he knew,
though all others criticized. They,
the criticizers, knew not what he had painted,
what he meant by each and every brushstroke, each
careful swoosh of each
forkful thrown high to land with a soft
gurgle of water over pebbles.
"Revolution!"
they cried. "Revolution!
is his purpose!"

How sorely they missed it: how beautifully and simply and fully he made
these, the gleaners.
Yes,
they are peasants.
Yes,
they are poor,
yet see
how they live!
They
are quiet, anonymous, and humble.
Bent low, hands out-stretched, they brush their fingers along
the ground, searching to feel and feeling to search,
knowing the LORD
provides.

Millet, he knew.
Subtly mirroring
Ruth and her trust
for tomorrow's worries and sorrows,
the three gleaners work
in frozen posture, hoping
tomorrow's generations understand.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Coming Full Circle

Now that the semester is over, the fact that I will not be returning to Tech for the fall semester is really being to hit home. As I prepare for the multitude of changes I will be facing this summer and in the coming semester, I am reminded of a poem I wrote for my creative writing class this last fall.

Dishes

Around once, around twice, around
again and again she went, carefully
dragging striped cloth through watery
iridescence. Pulling back, her hands stung
like one thousand small pricks from one thousand microscopic needles.
How many more must she do before she was done?
Twenty? Thirty? Ninety?

"Because I'm your mother and I told you to."

"But it doesn't have to be done,
not now, not ever!"
she had said.

"Back in my day. . ."

"Back in your day, not my
day, not this
day," she had said.

Still, she went around
and around, like she had been doing for days, weeks, months.
Each circle brought more options
and more choices.
If only each circle
could be retraced back,
even as she now reversed
the motion of the striped cloth. Entropy
wouldn't allow it. Quandaries
became more complex
just as the universe became ever more unordered.
Would anything ever be simple;
would this
ever end?

Yes, this was it, the last
one. As she lifted it out, it shone
like a twin of the full moon, now rising
from the watery depths to meet
its partner at the sill. Stepping back,
she held out her hands, grasping
at thin air, as if to decide
which disk was hers.
Her focus wavered
and then came a crash
and a tinkling shower. The silent
patter of falling from her fingertips could not
then mask the flood. . .
pouring down. . .
and down. . .
her face.