Sunday Poetry: A Moment Seen, Forever Known
Welcome to Sunday Poetry. If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday blogs here.
What’s your part? Just slow down a little and come along for the read–or sometimes, for the listen. No analysis needed or required. Let the poem sink in and move you wherever it may. If you’d like to tell us what the day’s poem means in your life, or what word or phrase you’ve chosen to reflect on in the coming week, or where those reflections have taken you, we would be honored to have your comment.
A Timbered Choir by Wendell Berry talks about one exquisite moment in an “ordinary” place. “. . . and around it the whole field filled with chicory in bloom, blue as the sky reflected in the pond.” I was in my mid-twenties before I saw wild chicory in bloom in Southwest Virginia. I could not imagine anything so lovely entwined and blooming with Queen Anne’s lace by country roadsides, weeds some called it, but not me. Never, never me. Chicory still thrills me, as it thrilled Wendell Berry.
What might you find at home that is more significant, more heartbreakingly beautiful, than anything you saw when you searched in other places?
“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.” George Eliot
This is my favorite poem ever….and sums up how I feel about my family and close friends.
Reminds me of the saying – May all your weeds be wildflowers. When my brother married, the rehearsal dinner was at a country park, and they had not given us center pieces to decorate, just table covers, so I started picking the prettiest “wildflowers” near by. Turns out, it was “rag weed”…… let’s say some started sneezing! So much beauty in the “trash” world, don’t you think!!
I think I feel an allergy attack coming on, but I do think the difference between a weed and a wildflower is all in the eye of the beholder–and she who is in charge of the flowerbeds.
I have had that feeling of the beauty in front of me seeming to be “another world in this one.”. In fact it happened when I watered the broccoli in our back yard and watched those gems of water race off the spectacular leaves. I got stuck in staring.
Thank you, Kevin. I can almost see it through your description.
How wonderfully timely, for just a bit ago I returned to my porch after taking pictures of wild chicory down the road…I believe chicory is one of the prettiest blossoms I have ever seen–I so enjoy it!
Lovely poem you’ve shared today–thank you 🙂
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I’ve never been sure why it’s so appealing. The gorgeous blue? The sparsity of leaves so the blossoms are highlighted? Just the shape of it? Maybe it’s the ability to bloom where other flowers never would. So glad you enjoyed.
My memory is associated with blue hydrangeas and my grandmother. There was a large bush of hydrangeas by her side porch. In my mind, I can see them today. In fact, I have two huge bushes outside my kitchen window where I look at them each day as we sit at our little kitchen table and eat our meals. Nannie always feels close to me when I look out and see those masses of various shades of blue blooms.
That’s a lovely memory and tribute.