Category Archives: books

Only so for hours

By Posted in books, nature, poetry 2 Comments

While visiting a state park on Monday, I noticed that the spring gold — a color I don’t actually care for — had nearly yielded to green. “Nothing gold can stay, Pony Boy,” I quipped, but then I could not recall the complete poem. Reading aloud from one of the first authoritative sites in my search, I thought that, while movingly beautiful (“In gold as it began / The world will end for man. / And some belief avow 
/ The world is ending now. / The final age of gold…”), the poem seemed unfamiliar. Reading more carefully, I realized that I had recited an early draft of Robert Frost’s work. The poem we know, of course, is only eight lines:

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Each April, I promise myself I will read more poetry and perhaps memorize a poem. This year, I successfully kept the first promise: I finished Dante’s Purgatorio. My daughter and I read You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World (edited by Ada Limón). And, as part of our dive into Brazilian-Portuguese literature, we also read Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems (Carlos Drummond De Andrade). Now, how to keep the second promise? Like high-impact aerobics and all-nighters, memorization is an activity that was more easily executed when I was younger, so I’ve begun this task gently, rereading and rereading. I think I’ve nearly got it and wonder if I should try another.

Do you memorize poetry? What are your tips?

Self-conscious

By Posted in birds, books, health 2 Comments

Portrait Bust of a Woman; Mid-2nd century, Roman.
My photo, taken at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Women beyond a certain age are largely unseen, I know, but beneath that cloak of invisibility, I have been self-conscious about my appearance for several months. My husband and daughters have assured and reassured me that all is well, but I didn’t begin to believe it until yesterday, when the surgeon smilingly beheld her work and declared that I am healing much more quickly (and much less traumatically) than most can expect; more, I will look as if much of this had never happened — and soon.

Since late August, it has sometimes felt as if my calendar comprised only medical appointments followed by return visits coupled with lab work accompanied by consultations, as if my days demanded many, too many, health-related accommodations. This is a drama-filled and -fueled interpretation of what were largely commonplace issues associated with aging, and when I couldn’t talk (or shame) myself out of feeling sorry for me, I walked. It helped (even when it hurt — hence, the orthopedist, the orthotics) — as did reading, finding the Jerry Orbach seasons of Law & Order on Hulu, looking at art, and listening to music, including pop treasures like this.

Today through rain-streaked windows, I can see wet-feathered birds visiting our feeders while I, dry and warm in my favorite chair, read from a stack that includes Shakespeare’s Henry V and The Tempest and Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. And according to the forecast, I should be able to walk for a bit before class tonight. I’ll wear my cloak of invisibility with confidence.