Reading and Retrospective

First, Reading.
Those of you who have been reading here for a while may remember that I always post a list of books read in each year. Although I have lower than usual confidence in my record-keeping for the wild and crazy 2011, here's the list (and please forgive me for not properly formatting titles):

At Home: A Brief History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
Adam and Eve a novel by Sena Jeter Naslund
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Blood Almanac poems by Sandy Longhorn
Threshold poems by Jennifer Richter
Rookery poems by Traci Brimhall
The First Four Books poems by Louise Gluck
Gilead a novel by Marilynne Robinson
Housekeeping a novel by Marilynne Robinson
The Forgotten Garden a novel by Kate Morton
Wuthering Heights a novel by Emily Bronte
A Room with a View a novel by E.M. Forster
Pearl of China a novel by Anchee Min
Rebecca a novel by Daphne duMaurier
The House at Riverton a novel by Kate Morton
Sacred Hearts a novel by Sarah Dunant
A Gate at the Stair a novel by Lorrie Moore
Private Life a novel by Jane Smiley
Queen Bee Moms and King Pin Dads by Rosalind Wiseman
Heart's West: True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier by Chris Enss
The Beekeeper's Apprentice a novel by Laurie King
Today's Special Dish poems by Nina Lindsay
A Reliable Wife a novel by Robert Goolrick
The Price of Privilege by Madeline Levine
WAIT poems by Alison Stine
The Everything Tween Book by Linda Sonna
Selected Poems by H.D.
Colosseum poems by Katie Ford
When Will There Be Good News? a novel by Kate Atkinson
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

up next:

No Eden poems by Sally Rosen Kindred, and
Death Comes to Pemberley a novel by P.D. James

And now, Retrospective.
Reader, Both Fires is almost three years old. My how time flies.

In those three years of my life as mother, we've gone from little ones, to big-ish ones; from the bird theater to exclamations of "Epic fail!" and "Whatever." (Oh, how I detest 'whatever.').

In those three years of my life as writer, we've gone from the fledgling poet just trying to connect to the world of poetry a bit, to the still-fledgling poet who is now sending out her work on a regular basis and sometimes even getting acceptances; from the mom who felt guilty taking time off to write, to the writer who knows her children will be better and stronger because she pursues her own creative life without apology.

In those three years of my life as person, we've gone from the teeny tiny woman (who, I'm glad to tell you, doesn't live here anymore) to a gal who, yes, has a chronic illness but who now has the right meds and a clearer diagnosis, and who can see her illness more as a sculpting life force than an invisible box.

I've enjoyed writing here, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading.

Starting tomorrow, I invite you to join me at the stanza, where the story of mother, of writer, of person, poet and pilgrim, will continue. I hope to see you there.

Reader, I wish you peace, joy, and everything wonderful in 2012 and beyond.

Thoughts for the New Year

Hello, Reader. What are you doing today?

Here in the Peninsula Town, we are cleaning the good ship Rack 'Em and Stack 'Em. Husband is swabbing the decks. I'm tending to the galley (although, obviously, I've just snuck off to write this post), and the cabin boys and girl have been ordered to tidy their quarters. Aye, aye, sir!

The close intersection of our big cleaning day and the turn of the year reminds me of something Jane Hirshfield spoke of at the reading I attended earlier this fall. She told the audience that each year at New Year's she cleans, or attempts to clean, every surface and object in her house. As she explained it, this is an annual ritual observed by Buddhists. She said that, although she has been doing this for many years, each year she always finds something that she has never cleaned before.

I find this idea fascinating: just to touch each and every surface and object that form the space one calls home... and to find places, spaces, things, that one has never touched... and then, to touch them for the first time.

I imagine that within the context of a healthy dose of Buddhist detachment, this ritual cleaning is very life-giving. However, trust me: here at the good ship Rack 'Em and Stack 'Em, under the overhang of Catholic guilt, we are attempting no such feat.

Still, I have ritual on the mind. Ritual, perhaps from the Proto-Indo-European re(i), "to count, number" via the Latin for rite, "religious observance or ceremony, custom, usage."

The holidays are rife with ritual. Even now the masses are going through the ritual contemplation of New Year's resolutions, no? Well, not me. I'm not much one for resolutions this year -- probably because of the way all my best-laid plans and goals for 2011 were cleansed away by Moving to California. This year, I'm thinking: I might exercise more, or I might not. I might eat more veggies, or I might not. I might put a chapbook together, or I might not (I pause here to offer extra credit for anyone who can tell me where this phrase comes from: "Might go to Yale. Might not.") As for New Year's rituals, we don't have any hard and fast ones around here. Sometimes we cook a nice dinner, then the kids complain about it and hardly eat, then we all go to bed. Sometimes not.

As I look to 2012, I'm thinking only

persist

natural bridge at Santa Cruz

shape and be shaped

pacific beach

stay on your path, the one you were made for

Skyline hike

keep things in perspective

redwoods

And, although I don't have a photo of it, the sign I caught sight of at a coffeeshop I drove by yesterday (and although I just had to get up from my desk, go into my bedroom, and lock the door to get it, and although someone has been hanging on that locked door crying "Mommeeeeee! Mommeeee! Mommeeeee!" for the last 10 minutes),


relax, you have plenty of time


Happy 2012, Reader.

(P.S. etymology info here)

Sunday Words: A belated birthday homage to Rilke

Last Sunday was the birthday of Rainer Maria Rilke, who is one of my all-time favorite poets (although, I confess, he had to grow on me at first). And here is one of my all-time favorite poems by Rilke, perfect for a Sunday, or for any day, if you ask me:

1

I live my life in growing orbits
which move out over the things of the world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.

-- from Das Stundenbuch

Takin' This Show on the Road

at our friendly neighborhood CalTrain station

I'm considering a new tag line for my life: "have poems, will travel" (other contenders: "all times approximate" and "warning: introvert - approach at your own risk." This last one is my favorite for Kinder pick-up time).

Lately, I've been putting some feelers out into the Bay Area poetry scene, hoping to find other poets and make some connections. Because I'm naturally shy, and thanks to the librarian voice in my head that keeps saying, 'but you're not a REAL poet,' I have had to put on my brave heart in order to enter these waters.

But, gladly, my efforts have panned out.

The first connection I made was with Laura E. Davis who blogs at Dear Outer Space. I first crossed paths (virtually speaking) with Laura when I came across Weave Magazine, the literary journal she founded (how cool is that, by the way!? She started her own journal!). I bought an issue or two of Weave, and really liked what I read there. Then, last summer, I was reading through Adanna where one of my poems had landed, and came across another poem I really liked, noted that the author's name sounded familiar, but I wasn't sure why. Enter the rabbit hole of poetry blogs..... a month later, I came across a link to Laura's blog on another poetry blog, and finally put the puzzle together: this was the Laura E. Davis of Weave, and she had just moved to the Bay Area, too! Coincidence? I'd like to think not. Anyway, long story longer, Laura and I exchanged e-mails and decided to work together, exchanging poems and information, etc. Our first meeting was last month; our second will be this Sunday. We meet at The Creamery near the CalTrain station in San Francisco. I'm thrilled to have found a poetry pal, and excited to work with Laura, whose writing is beautiful and exciting, and whose journal you should read.

Another connection came to me through a class I'm taking from Molly Fisk (the class, by the way, is called "Getting Your Work Out" and it has really helped me to commit to a more regular practice of submitting my work to journals). Molly forwarded me an e-mail that had been circulating through poetry circles about a group in Berkeley that was looking for a new member. I decided to send my work to the group to see if I might have a shot at joining them. Last week, they invited me to come to the next meeting to see if we're a good fit (me for them and them for me). Berkeley is a bit of a hike from our little peninsula town, but I'm hoping it will all work out, and if not, at least I've made a tentative connection with a few more Bay Area poets.

And speaking of taking the show on the road, I wanted to let you in on a little secret: For the past few months I've been working on building a new blog -- one that's a bit more dedicated to poetry, out of respect for my kids' growing sense of self and privacy. I'll be making the transition in the next few weeks, and will definitely let you know when my new blog is live. Meanwhile, the Mom Trying to Write still has a few things to say about motherhood, so I'll be blogging here for at least a little while longer. I hope that you'll follow me over to the stanza: a little room for poetry & the writing life when I make the switch. Feel free to take a sneak peek now, if you like (not that there's much to peek at).

And now, I must take another show on the road. There is a "Cultural Heritage Luncheon" for Sister's Kinder class today (gripemumblemumblegripemumblemumble). When I asked her what kind of food she wanted me to bring, I was filled with fear. We are Scottish and Irish. Would I have to learn how to cook haggis or mutton stew? You just have to love a little girl whose answer was, "Hot dogs and beans, Mama! Hot dogs and beans!" That, I can handle. In less than an hour, I'll be pulling the hot dogs and beans down the block in our little red wagon.

Happy trails to you today, Reader.

Rollin' With It

One thing that's fun and kind of freeing about moving across the country is that you no longer know what to expect, so you don't necessarily expect anything (well, it's kind of freeing unless the thing you didn't know to expect was a big something-or-another at school that you missed. But I digress.). The last two mornings we've climbed out of bed into a sea of fog, or cloud, or ocean mist, or whatever it is. The whole world was a ghost, and light came late to the morning. When it was time to walk to school, the fog or cloud or ocean mist or whatever it is clung to our fleeces and hair. A brand new weather experience, and we don't know if it's usual for this time of year or not.

Leaves are turning and falling now that it's almost December. The color is striking against the blue-green backdrop of the foothills, which seem softer in the late autumn light -- gentler shadows under a gentler sun. But wait -- is it late autumn? Or, Reader, do you think it's winter here yet? I don't know, but I'm rollin' with it.

Same goes for the writing life lately. Holiday and virus-related schedule interruptions threaten at every turn. I'm rollin' with it. Teeny tiny fever? Tummyache? No problem, I'll write some other day. I'm fitting in a few submissions every week while I kill time waiting for the library to open (sidebar: if I were in charge of the world the library would open at 8 a.m. Vote for me!) -- not as much as I'd like, but some every week is better than none. I've been revising the six Mail Order Bride poems, and this time, rather than just tinkering, I'm doing some re-vision, trying a few different versions of each poem. It'll be fun to see what happens behind door number 1, 2 and 3 inside the room of each poem.

And I've been reading a collection of poems that has me rollin' with it, too: Blue Hour by Carolyn Forche (that e has a little thing-y (technical term) above it but I don't know how to insert it here). I've had to work hard to stay with the book, not because it's not good -- it's full of beautiful and scathing and inventive images; war and peace; death and life; present and past (and maybe even future?); certainty and memory. But the poems have very little narrative and connective tissue holding the images together, so I'm never 100% sure what's going on in the poem or the collection, except to sense that, in this book, the world is both disturbing and beautiful, unknowable and yet deeply known, full of suffering that can blunt or hone us, or both. Seems about right to me. So I've been rollin' with the feeling-ness (technical term) of the poems, resting in the white space, and persisting.

Whatever's coming your way these days, I hope you're rollin' with it, too. Happy winter (maybe).

Sunday Words: Thanks

"God of all broken hearts, empty hands, sleeping soldiers,
  God of all star-flung beaches of night sky,
  I and my love-child stand up together to-day and sing: 'Thanks, O God.'"

--from Carl Sandburg's poem "Fire Dreams"

A Draft (!) and my mother to thank for it

I had convinced myself there would be no time for drafting this week. Thanksgiving on Thursday. No school on Wednesday. Appointments on Tuesday. That left today for holiday shopping and, most important, for purchasing pie plates. I am the pie-maker for our California family Thanksgiving. I take this responsibility very seriously. And my pie plates are too shallow and insufficient in number to feed the crowd. So, I thought I'd run up to the College Town to buy pie plates today.

My mom said no.

She said for-heavens-sake-buy-some-foil-pie-pans-at-the-grocery-store-and-go-to-the-library-to-write.

Mom, you rock! I took your good advice!

So I went to the library and got set up to work by my favorite, sunny window. I then promptly fell asleep, deep enough to dream. Then I woke up and got to work.

My process for the last two weeks or so has been to read a couple pages of Carolyn Forche's long poem "On Earth" from her collection Blue Hour. I read, scribble down phrases and words that seem to be important, and make notes about what I think might be going on in the poem (I am never sure as there is very little narrative or connective tissue in this poem). Then I take the words and mix them up with some of my favorite words, and draft lines. Since last week, I have been writing the lines in on my post-it notes for the twenty little poetry projects.

I continued that process today, never expecting to go toward a draft with it, but the Mail Order Bride began speaking. She said, Kind Sir / I am a map / You may unfold me. She said, Make our bed / A prairie a nest / For our bones / Their hushed mingling / Come to me in the hour / Of fading thresholds. Kind of a forward gal, isn't she? I worked slowly, as has been the case for all the MOB drafts, going back and forth from my notebook and the computer, culling lines and images from the post-it notes, sometimes adding, sometimes taking away. I ended up with a draft of 53 (yikes! that's a ton for me) very short lines. The draft ends with a question: Kind Sir how will I know you? Which, in my opinion, summarizes the mystery that is marriage in seven words :).

So, today I learned a few things. One is that we all need people in our lives to support our life's work, to keep us on the road when we tend toward the ditch, to remind us of who we are and what's most important. Another is that you can draft a ton of lines in just a few days if you're willing to stop by your desk between loads of laundry, sinks full of dishes, boo-boos to kiss, and peace treaties to negotiate (or between whatever activities fill your days). And lastly, that a catnap by a sunny window at the library is the very definition of bliss.

Now I will go home and be a happy baker of pies. And a poet, too.

Sunday Words: Marie Howe and Kay Ryan

Dear Universe, thank you for public radio.

In a little twist on the usual Sunday words, here are links to two interviews: one with Marie Howe, and the other with Kay Ryan.

I almost choked when Terry Gross introduced Marie Howe as a "little-known poet." But I was glad to hear Marie Howe interviewed, and especially liked hearing her talk about the poem she'd been trying to write for twenty years. It gives me hope for a few of my resting poems that I just can't let go of. Here's the interview.

And here is Michael Krasny of KQED interviewing Kay Ryan. I am always encouraged by her later-in-life success, and I like the bit of rebel streak in her (have you ever read her essay, 'I Go to AWP '?). Best quote from the interview (I am paraphrasing): Michael Krasny asks Kay Ryan if she reads much contemporary poetry. She says 'No,' -- pause -- 'Kind of a conversation stopper isn't it?'



(Image is public domain from wikimedia commons).

The Poetry Hack is in the House: Titles for Writers and Readers

"Well, gee, Ward, what do you think the title should be?"

Reader, I've had a request. One of my po-friends wants me to blog about titles. What makes a title good, effective. What a title can tell us. How to write awesome titles. I confess, I feel I have no authority to write on this topic. I'm just a poetry hack! I have not read essays on how to choose one's title. I do not have formal poetry training in general or in specifics. I have not published a zillion awesomely-titled poems. And as for 'How?', I fall on my knees before the mystery of How in so many areas of my life, especially poetry.

But what I can write about is what my instincts tell me about titles and a few tricks I've learned for unlocking titles as reader and writer.

If I were to give a very short definition of what a poem's title should be, I would say this: It is a legend to the poem. Not 'legend' as in story handed down by tradition, but 'legend' as in map key. If a poem is a map, the title is the legend of that map.

Direction  If we look at a typical map legend, we always see a compass rose or at least an arrow indicating due north. In the same way, the title of a poem should give us a basic orientation from which to begin reading. Example: Recently I wrote a draft under the working title "Home-making, again." Since we moved I've been thinking a lot about how we make our homes in this life, and the mysterious qualities that make a house into a home. One of the first revisions I made to the poem was to change the title to "Home, Making." Why? Because the word home-making brings us directly to June Cleaver, which is not where I wanted my reader to start out with the poem. With the new title, the reader gets the idea that we are going to be considering two ideas: the idea of home, and the idea of making -- a very different starting place from my good buddy June, no offense to her.

Scale  If you're anything like me, you have often held your finger up to that little line in the map legend that tells how many miles from the tip of your finger to your first finger joint. Just as a map has its scale, so does a poem. The title can give us a hint about what scale the poet has in mind for her poem. Example: In this post, I excerpted Jane Hirshfield's poem, which in her book, Come, Thief, is titled "For the Lobaria, Usnea, Witches Hair,  Map Lichen, Beard Lichen, Ground Lichen, Shield Lichen." The same poem appears in The Atlantic online under the title "For the Lichens." My sense is this: under the longer, more specific title, we get a message of scale from the poet. She is calling our attention both to the great diversity, and the individuality of each lichen. We are to think of abundance, variation, uniqueness, and the necessity of each. Not a generalized look at things, but a message about every.single.one. To me, the two titles speak to different scales and encourage us to read the poem differently.

Symbols Every map legend tells us how to interpret the symbols that appear on the map: a teepee for campgrounds, different colors and widths of lines to represent county roads vs. interstates vs. seasonal roads (well, if you come from where I come from there are roads that close for the winter), blue for water, green for natural area, and so on. Just so, a title can tell us how to interpret the "symbols" (images) in a poem. Example: in Andrea Cohen's poem Self-portrait with Forgiveness, we know to interpret her symbols through the lens of one person and her relationship with the concept and practice of forgiveness. A fish in the shoe -- slippery, uncomfortable, blazing (orange!), and yet, at the end of the day, comforting.

If I were to tell you about the titles that I always fall for, I would tell you this: I fall for titles that (1) purport to be primers, how-tos, and survival guides (2) have a temporal and/or geographical location (3) are two-words separated by a comma (3) emulate titles of art (e.g., "Self-Portrait with Acorns"). I fall for titles that do something to shake-up the expectations we have around the above categories (such as "Self-Portrait with Forgiveness" above -- a portrait with an abstraction rather than an object).

I've learned a few tricks of the trade through trial and error. An important one is to put any exposition the poem requires into the title. I once wrote a poem that is a reinterpretation of the Hansel and Gretel story. The first draft tried to give readers information about setting and reinterpretation in the first stanza. As I revised, I realized I could do all that in the title if I named the poem "Gretel, Florida 1978." Goodbye to a clumsy, throat-clearing stanza, hello to compression.

As for how to write awesome titles, I truly do not know. I emulate the format of my favorite titles. I work under a title to draft the poem, let the poem rest, then decide what the real title should be. Sometimes I steal a bit of significant text from within the poem. Sometimes I ask my po-friends what they think the title should be. Once or twice I have been known to ask Husband, but really, he's an engineer. Sometimes I wake up from a deep sleep in the middle of the night with the title echoing in my head (this has also happened to me in my Previous Life as an economics major -- the solution to a complex equation swimming up from the subconscious, sleeping mind -- a miracle!). I allow an element of intuition to enter when considering titles -- I may just have a hunch about what the title should be; I trust that intuition even if I can't, at first, articulate the "why" of the title. And then, sometimes I can't think of a good title no matter how hard I try and the poem stays in the resting drawer forever and ever.

If you are a writer or a reader and have good tricks for decoding or creating titles, or title formats you always fall for when you're reading, share them in the comments. And here's a little poem to enjoy in which rock-star poet Billy Collins takes on the subject of titles (thanks to Drew for this link).

This is the Poetry Hack, signing off. Thanks for joining us today.

~~~
P.S.: Snagged the photo of June Cleaver from modernretrowoman.com

Public Service Announcement: The Poet Jane Hirshfield on KQED

Michael Krasny will interview the poet Jane Hirshfield this morning on KQED, 10 o'clock Pacific time. Click on this link for more information. Click on this link to listen live at 10:00 PDT.

On My Nightstand: the Minimalist Edition

Reader, there are nightstands and then there are nightstands. There are nightstands that can hold towering stacks of books and temporary pharmacies, and then there is my new nightstand at the Casita, which requires strategic positioning to accommodate any books.

And as I pondered my postage-stamp-sized nightstand last night, I realized it has been forever since I've said what was on it. So today, let me tell you briefly what I've been reading:

In FICTION:

(not pictured) Private Life by Jane Smiley. For those of you who read A Thousand Acres when you were too young and naive to expect its unfolding plot line, and therefore were scarred for life (who, me?), never fear. Private Life is nothing like it. Set primarily in Vallejo, California, during the years after the Civil War through the run-up to World War II, this is a story of a marriage, its exterior vs. its interior, the effects of eccentricity, and how private lives and the public world can shape one another. Exquisite characters. Read it.

(not pictured) The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King. This was a birthday gift from my brother and sister-in-law, the first in a series of "novel(s) of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes." I always find it interesting to read stories in which well-known literary characters are borrowed from their original author and put into a new set of stories. I liked this one quite a bit -- good plot, interesting characters. You can't go wrong here, especially if you like a good series.

Burning Your Boats: The Complete Short Stories by Angela Carter. I flipped right to the section containing "The Bloody Chamber" and other stories. "The Bloody Chamber" is a well-known feminist reinterpretation of the Bluebeard story (other tales in this volume are reinterpretations of other Old Tales; I am a sucker for such reinterpretations every time). Gothic, spooky, unflinching, and crafted in beautiful prose, these stories will have you thinking about courtship anxieties, forbidden spaces, true love, deceiving appearances, and the like. Perfect if you like to be spooked before sleeping (which I do, because I have a hunch that being spooked before sleeping plants poem-seeds, not to mention wacky dreams).


In NON-FICTION:

(not pictured) Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads: Dealing with Difficult Parents in Your Child's Life by Rosalind Wiseman. Rosalind Wiseman is the author of the well-known book on female peer relations, Queen Bees and Wannabes. This book caught my eye in the children's room at our public library. I'm not sure the subtitle quite does it justice. I rarely read parenting how-to books, but I found this book immensely helpful for two reasons: (1) it verified for me my sense that peer pressure begins earlier now than it once did, and documented the culture of achievement (I would say over-achievement) that seems to have its claws into my generation of parents (some call it "helicopter" parenting), and (2) it suggested real strategies for helping your children and your family opt out of the achievement-at-all-costs mode of being. I'm sure one of the reasons I liked it is that it validated many of my beliefs, e.g., 8 year olds don't need cell phones, sophomores shouldn't be taking five AP classes, and playing traveling soccer by age 5 does not predestine your child for greatness in this life. A real dose of common sense, thank you Ms. Wiseman, you are wise indeed.


In POETRY:

Reader, yesterday I almost expired because...... I had ..... no new poems .... to read. Very jittery, I was. Veeeeerrrrrry jittery. And then, O thank you Beneficent Goddess of Just-in-Time, the letter-carrier delivered issue 10 of Cave Wall and Alison Stine's WAIT.

But first, let me tell you about Nina Lindsay's Today's Special Dish, which I read and studied last week: Grit and beauty in the same poem, nay, in the same line. Finger-lickin' descriptions of food and the ceremonies we build around it. Fresh and luminous angles of light. Stories of the sublime in the day-to-day. Treat yourself, Reader, it's delectable.

As for Cave Wall, last night, as usual, I was not the mom watching flag football from the sidelines cheering every time my child touched the ball. Last night, I was not the mom on the playground refereeing games for the younger siblings of the flag-footballers. As usual, I was the mom sitting off in the distance with her nose in a book (I happen to like this approach -- I get to read, and my children don't have to be under the microscope). And I was rewarded with lines like this:

"... All month the clouds / are long bones descending, or / feathers, sister, falling // into rock where their names / and dates are trapped / like the first birds in ancient silt. ..."

--from Sally Rosen Kindred's "Feathers, Sister, Falling"

Lovely, lovely, and I can't wait to read more of Cave Wall this week. As a bonus, the artwork in this issue is enchanted and enchanting.

Reader, you will have to wait for WAIT by Alison Stine since I haven't cracked it open yet. But let me entice you with some jacket text: "In a small town under a spell, a child bride prays for the sheriff's gun. ... Part fairy tale, and part gothic ballad WAIT spans a single year: the year before a young woman's marriage."

So, there you have my little book report. What have you been reading lately? Let me know in comments if you like.

And now in other news: a few drafts have been stacking up here and there. I'll be revising some today. I am very happy to have some poet-time today.

Stay tuned for:
~ more on Today's Special Dish
~The Poet Expands Her Use of Technology
~Titles, or, What On Earth Is the Name of This Poem? for Readers and Writers, and,
~In Which She Lashes Herself to the Mast and Resists the Siren Song of the PTA

Happy day, Reader!

Sunday Words: from 'Orchard'

"I saw the first pear
as it fell—
the honey-seeking, golden-banded,
the yellow swarm
was not more fleet than I,
(spare us from loveliness)
and I fell prostrate
crying:
you have flayed us
with your blossoms,
spare us the beauty
of fruit-trees. "


--from 'Orchard' by H.D.