Poetry Friday: Learning How to Hover

Robert Francis 1901-1987

 

Contemplating the small hummingbirds in our garden this early September, I offer up another small poem written by Robert Francis, (last week's poem about the farm boy was by RF, too) who was contemplating advice from his not-so-small mentor, Robert Frost.


To the Ghost of Robert Frost

"You've got to learn to hover,"
He said. The way a hummingbird
Hovers over a flower, the way
The flower's fragrance hovers over it.
Not to move on, not to
Keep jumping like a nervous grasshopper
But to hover there until you
Have gathered all that is there
For you or anyone to gather.
"You've got to learn to hover."

This is at the heart of what a poet needs to learn how to do, of course - not flit like a butterfly, not chirp like a nut hatch, not swoop like a swallow, not scold like a crow, but hover.

Definitely knew how to hover....

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The Poetry Friday round-up today is hosted by Laura over at AUTHOR AMOK. Head over there to see what other people have posted.

Poetry Friday: Robert Frost in a Mood

Robert Frost 1958 - Photo by Yousuf Karsh

For Poetry Friday, I'm just going to post this photo of Robert Frost owning a chair. He looks pretty relaxed for a guy who thought in iambic pentameters, though maybe the height of his waistband says something about that. Love the tie going the opposite direction of the body. Love that dog, who seems to have survived a Frost-like blustery day in New England.  The photo is by Yousuf Karsh, a wonderful Armenian-Canadian photographer - when you think of portraits of Winston Churchill or Ernest Hemingway (in his Papa Hemingway years), you're probably thinking of iconic photos by Karsh. I wonder if he had to tell Mr. Frost, "Try putting your right leg up over the arm of the chair"? Or maybe he just asked politely. Or maybe Frost just sat like this with no urging - what a wonderful thought.

I should really post a poem by Frost, too, but somehow the photo is a poem of its own. To give credit where credit is due, I found the photo over on Vulture.com, at the top of a review of the new book The Art of Robert Frost by Tim Kendall, which I am going to go right out and buy. Sounds terrific. I hope this photo is on the cover. I might just make it my screensaver.

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The Poetry Friday round-up is hosted today by Mary Lee Hahn over at A Year of Reading. Head over there to see what other people have posted.

Poetry Friday: February, Frost, Cold Pink Ladies

As a native Washingtonian, I never thought I'd say this, but I do find myself wondering as I get older why I'm not living in a place where the sun shines more predictably. I don't mean the desert - that takes a sturdier, tougher soul than me. The sky in the desert is wide and lovely, but the land is mean. No, I like things generous: I'd love to look out and see a field of sunflowers, with blue sky overhead, instead of dormant and sad-sack Seattle in February. Maybe it's because so many friends and family have been traveling to Mexico, Hawaii, Italy this winter - I find myself dreaming of guayavas in Patzcuaro and pineapples in Kauai. I want to hold a vine-ripened tomato - the kind you find for sale in the Campo de' Fiori market stalls in Rome in June - up to my nose and just inhale the peppery smell of the vine. Sunshine, sunshine, give me some sunshine! But no....

Oh, dear.

Well, here is a little reminder from Robert Frost that cold is needed, even by the orchards that will give me some of the sun-ripened fruit I crave. Brrrrrrrrrr.....it's hard to wait. But when I bite into a Pink Lady apple in August, I'll taste February in it, won't I? And I guess Spring is not that far off.....

Almost....

Good-bye, and Keep Cold

This saying good-bye on the edge of the dark

And cold to an orchard so young in the bark

Reminds me of all that can happen to harm

An orchard away at the end of the farm

All winter, cut off by a hill from the house.

I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse,

I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse

By deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse.

(If certain it wouldn't be idle to call

I'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall

And warn them away with a stick for a gun.)

I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun.

(We made it secure against being, I hope,

By setting it out on a northerly slope.)

No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm;

But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm.

"How often already you've had to be told,

Keep cold, young orchard. Good-bye and keep cold.

Dread fifty above more than fifty below."

I have to be gone for a season or so.

My business awhile is with different trees,

Less carefully nourished, less fruitful than these,

And such as is done to their wood with an axe—

Maples and birches and tamaracks.

I wish I could promise to lie in the night

And think of an orchard's arboreal plight

When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)

Its heart sinks lower under the sod.

But something has to be left to God.

                                        -Robert Frost

Yes, glorious, glorious, glorious!

The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted by Myra at Gathering Books. Head over there to see what other people have posted!  

And don't forget to check the other blogs I participate in - Books Around the Table (my writers group) and Write at Your Own Risk (written by faculty of Vermont College of Fine Arts' Writing for Children program.)