The End of Poetry

Well, not really, because poetry is life, and as long as there is life there is poetry. Thank you for reading along during 2020's National Poetry Month. I'll close the month with these words by Ada Limon:


Enough of osseous and chickadee and sunflower
and snowshoes, maple and seeds, samara and shoot,
enough chiaroscuro, enough of thus and prophecy
and the stoic farmer and faith and our father and tis
of thee, enough of bosom and bud, skin and god
not forgetting and star bodies and frozen birds,
enough of the will to go on and not go on or how
a certain light does a certain thing, enough
of the kneeling and the rising and the looking
inward and the looking up, enough of the gun,
the drama, and the acquaintance’s suicide, the long-lost
letter on the dresser, enough of the longing and
the ego and the obliteration of ego, enough
of the mother and the child and the father and the child
and enough of the pointing to the world, weary
and desperate, enough of the brutal and the border,
enough of can you see me, can you hear me, enough
I am human, enough I am alone and I am desperate,
enough of the animal saving me, enough of the high
water, enough sorrow, enough of the air and its ease,
I am asking you to touch me.

—The End of Poetry, Ada Limón
(from the Laura Olin newsletter)

And one of my own:

Lines From Letters

by Nicole Kapise Perkins

 

Two lonely cross-roads that themselves cross each other I have walked several times this winter without meeting or overtaking so much as a single person on foot or on runners.

Here we are in the vortex, but this evening snatching a few moments repose in the “Ladies’ Parlor” for domestic life.

We little dreamed when we began this contest, optimistic with the hope and buoyancy of youth, that half a century later we would be compelled to leave the finish of the battle to another generation of women.

If I break a law of state or nation it is the duty of the civil courts to deal with me.

I am so full of misery to-night that I am ridiculous.

Three or four times I have given you the opportunity to make, gaily & good-humouredly, the transition which seems to me inevitable; & you have not chosen to do it.

I am only one, only one, only one; only one life to live, only sixty minutes in one hour; only one pair of eyes.

Of course we are lone survivors, of course the past that was our lives is at the bottom of an abyss—if the abyss has any bottom; of course too there’s no use talking unless one particularly wants to.

And so we are justified in taking risks.

This gift, like all the others, is characterized by simplicity and thoughtfulness, which I hope each member will make the slogan of their lives.

I am just slowly killing myself.

All’s well, and the twilight is like spring—vague azure and green and silver.

Turn your face to gay, thrilling instruction—the conquest of more & more amazing natural facts.

The photograph is all I have: it is with me from the morning when I think of you and of death at night.

I know there may be compensations, but have no heart to look ahead.

A night when I can not sleep—I think the first one since I am out here—bright moonlight on my door—everything so still but for a persistent mocking bird—somewhere out there in the night.

The ideas of man often interfere with natural processes.

 

I wanted most desperately to live and still do, and I thought about you a 1000 times, and wanted to see you again, and there was the impossible anguish and regret of all the work I had not done, of all the work I had to do.

If so I will make a prophecy—in ten years time no one will work for you for either love or money.

My fingers were on his lips, but no sound came from them for several seconds.

After some thought, I have decided that you are the most valuable person alive, so for God’s sake take care of yourself.

But if my own conscience tells me I’ve done my duty—I will always come back to you in the certainty that you’d understand any fall from the high places, and that my place in your heart would be as big as ever.

You may not approve of it and it may not be the form in which you see the ideal—but I would like you to accept, as my tribute to you, the fact that what I took from you was taken for the figure of my own god.

But I also want to let all of this beauty get into my body.

Now night has come, everything is silent and peaceful.

In the comment on Life’s storage wall, I wrote: “…a pretty good case can be made out for setting fire to it and starting fresh.”

Be comforted, then, that we were serene and understood with the deepest kind of understanding, that civilization had not as yet progressed to the point where life did not have to be lost for the sake of life; and that we were comforted in the sure knowledge that others would carry on after us.

A desire I have had for a long time has overtaken me.

But I have been mentally blocked for a long time, first because I didn’t know just what it was I wanted to say about Life, and also for a reason more difficult to explain.

I’ve written a lot of poems from my heartache of being without you.

When the question is asked “How many lives are you willing to sacrifice:--it tears at my heart.

I am not afraid of Time or lies or losing money or defeat.

I want to make love to the world.

Talk to my poems, and talk to your heart—I’m in both: if you need me.

For the past few weeks I’ve been evaluating + reevaluating everything.

There really is nothing for me there.

I’m beginning to like this fucking case.