Sunday Poetry: How Heaven Pulls Earth Into Its Arms
Welcome to Sunday Poetry. If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday poetry blogs here.
I first heard today’s poem, Monet Refuses the Operation by Lisel Mueller, decades ago and fell in love with it then. What a pleasure to rediscover it this week while looking for poetry about regret, a theme in my latest novel, One Mountain Away. This poem is delightful in so many ways, but one of them is Monet’s lack of regret. You’ll understand when you read it.
In what ways do you see “differently” and would you change that if you could? What does your unique vision add to this world of ours? It’s a question worth consideration.
Remember, we read poetry together here for the pure pleasure of the experience. There are no quizzes, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share. Absolutely no dissecting allowed. Just come along for the “read.” What line, word or thought will you carry with you this week? If you’d like to tell us where the poem took you? We’ll listen.
Remember, too, there is a special giveaway in progress for those who comment on any Sunday Poetry blog before year’s end. An autographed copy of Billy Collins’s Horoscopes for the Dead. See the details here.
I have enjoyed the last few weeks poems. But that is not to say that earlier poems weren’t to my liking. Thanks for continuing this Sunday pleasure.
What a great poem. The line I’ll remember is the gaslights being angels. The imagery is fabulous throughout the poem. Thank you for sharing this.
Wow. I read today’s poem through tears in my eyes as my niece is completing her 3rd day of walking in the Susan G. Komen walk for breast cancer – and she had just published the names of all those she was walking for. Her mother, my sister, was at the top of her list. And lamp posts looking like angels just seemed to hit me. That poem can really pull the emotion right out of you. Thank you for finding this Emilie – especially for today’s read.
A beautiful poem about a great artist. What if he had his vision corrected? Would his paintings have been as beautiful? It is through his eyes we see the world in a different way.