“Fall Sanctuary” by Kory Wells

November 8, 2024November 8, 2024 ~ jama ~ 30 Comments

“Within you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.” ~ Herman Hesse

FALL SANCTUARY
by Kory Wells

                  ~ after Jeff Hardin

I slept in a room that glowed with fireflies,
though it was late autumn on a frosty bluff
high above Lost Cove. The room was a salve
of spun honey and light, and a hundred
little windowpanes gauzed with tranquility.

In a wide bed I slept alone, surrounded
by pillows and books, by poets I love.
In the night I lit a candle and a tiny string of lights
against the darkness. They were a comfort.
So was the darkness.

Outside I found an astonishment of stars,
a clear sky, spangled and deep.
How long had it been since I’d seen the stars?

This is how I fell asleep: my skin on soft cotton,
my body awaiting the gentle touch of fireflies,
their silent sparks. This is how I awoke:
unencumbered and enthralled, the early sun
casting over the mountain autumn into my room,
casting through the morning chill a stained-glass chapel,

                                    a splendor of stillness, stirring.
 
~ from Sugar Fix (Terrapin Books, 2019)

This lyrical gem provided me with a welcome moment of calm and beauty in these uneasy, turbulent times.

I especially love the “hundred little windowpanes gauzed with tranquility” and the “astonishment of stars,” feeling as though I was right there in the room, levitating in this sacred space, away from trouble and noise.

Wells’s use of light — glowing fireflies, starlight, candlelight, and finally, the rising sun — gives me hope, though even the darkness, she says, can be comforting.

I am reminded that in those instances when we aren’t able to physically retreat from the world, we can always find solace in the embrace of a luminous poem like this, or perhaps, within.

What does your fall sanctuary look like?

*“Silver Pheasant in Autumn Forest” by Asia Spettel.*

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twice as nice, or, grin and bear it

September 8, 2023September 8, 2023 ~ jama ~ 40 Comments

*Thinking of Queen Elizabeth II who died a year ago today.*

Happy September and Welcome Back!

After a nice summer break, we’re ready to talk about good books, share beautiful art and poems, rustle up some new recipes, and of course, play with our toys — as we mark 16 years of Alphabet Soup. Special greetings to all the new subscribers who’ve signed up recently. So glad you’re here!

The year has flown by at lightning speed and now that September has arrived, I wish time would. slow. down.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could have twice as many months during autumn (truly the best season of the year)? Twice as many crisp, cool days with deep blue skies, twice as much gorgeous seasonal color, twice as many pumpkins, apples, happy trick-or-treaters, and twice as much time to appreciate the small everyday pleasures no one can take away from us despite all the craziness going on in the world.

Hold on to what you can. Take it where you find it. Share it whenever possible.

There’s surprising news about Mr Cornelius, but first, a poem to celebrate the month that heralds more beauty to come.

THE MONTH OF ALL
by Henry Grantland Rice

You may take your winters southward,
You may have your golden Junes,
You may have your summer mountains
Or your eastern fog-swept dunes;
But I’ll take the first red ember,
Where the Painter works his will,
When it’s morning in September,
Or it’s noon-day in September,
Or it’s twilight in September,
And the flame is on the hill.
There is orange down the valley,
There is crimson out the lane;
There’s a fleck of purple tinting
Where the maples meet the rain.
For the glow that I remember,
With an everlasting thrill,
Is a morning in September,
Or a noon-time in September,
Or a twilight in September,
When the flame is on the hill.

(This poem is in the public domain.)

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poetry friday roundup is here!

October 21, 2021 ~ jama ~ 36 Comments

Welcome to Poetry Friday at Alphabet Soup!

Please help yourself to a friendly cup of hot chocolate and a yummy cookie. If you’ve been extra good this week, take two. 🙂

I think many of you would agree that October is the best autumn month. September can be a little too warm, the vestiges of summer dragging its feet, while November can have its grey, gloomy moments, inviting melancholy. Once we’re past Thanksgiving and rushing headlong into December, we’ve switched into holiday shopping mode, which doesn’t feel autumnal at all.

But October? Peak color, chipper mornings, deep blue skies, the anticipation of Halloween. Kids are happy in October dunking for apples, carving pumpkins, and fulfilling their wishes to dress up as anyone or any thing as they go trick-or-treating.

This month I was happy to discover Jeffrey Bean, a new-to-me Michigan poet who’s written a series of direct address poems beginning with “Kid, this is . . . “

Try this one on for size.

KID, THIS IS OCTOBER,

you can make the maples blaze
just by stopping to look,
you can set your clock to the barks
of geese. Somewhere the grandfathers
who own this town lean down to iron
crisp blue shirts, their faces bathing
in steam, and blackbirds
clamor in packs,
make plans behind corn.

You know this,
you were born whistling
at crackling stars, you snap
your fingers and big turtles
slide out of rivers to answer.

You can swim one more time
in the puddle of sun
in your water glass, taste icicles
already in the white crunch
of your lunch apple. Go
to sleep. I’ll put on my silver suit
and chase the sky into the moon.

~ from The Missouri Review, February 2016

About this poem, Jeffrey says:

One thing I love about being a parent is the way it wakes me up to the sensory details of the world. As a father of a five-year-old, I find myself trying to see through my daughter’s eyes, and in doing so I pay even more attention than usual to corn, turtles, flocks of blackbirds, maples, apples, water, etc., noticing the beauty as well as the strangeness in these things. In the series of “kid” poems from which “Kid, this is October” comes, I like the way the mode of direct address allows the father-speaker to catalog many such details in the form of advice, encouragement, pseudo-fables, or, in the case of this poem, as a kind of lullaby. He wants the kid to open up to the world as much as possible and he also wants the kid to go to sleep, which pretty much sums up my experiences with parenthood so far. What has been most interesting to me in writing these poems is the way it puts me in touch with my own childhood. It has made me realize how crucial imagination has been in my life as a kid and how crucial it continues to be in my life as a father.
~ from The Missouri Review, February 2016

It’s the same world, but we all see, hear, and feel it differently thanks to the mind’s eye. That’s our human super power, but often we need children to remind us of it.

And now, Kid, This is Mr. Linky. Feed him your poetic goodness. 🙂

Enjoy your meanderings around the blogosphere, engage in a little fall folderol this weekend, and have a Happy Halloween next Sunday.

poetry friday roundup is here!

October 22, 2020 ~ jama ~ 38 Comments

Welcome to Poetry Friday at Alphabet Soup!

Please help yourself to a mug of warm cider and an apple cider donut. Since things are tough these days, better take two. 🙂

While many of us consider fall our favorite season — we certainly love the gorgeous leaf color, the cooler temperatures and deep blue skies — there is always that shade of melancholy, a keener awareness of passing time.

As trees take their final bow in rustic costume, we become more appreciative of their transient beauty and painfully aware of our own mortality.

Recently I stumbled upon this poignant poem by Michigan poet David James. I think he gets it just right.

FALLING
by David James

I've wheelbarrowed over a thousand
apples behind the cedars
for compost.
Hundreds are still left stranded 
in the branches, dropping with each burst
of wind. Every year's a blur,
and my heart marks another tally off 
inside my chest wall. This is the year
of my first grandson, who purrs
asleep in my arms, who looks through me
with his dark eyes. I touch his soft
cheeks and his little fists shoot out
as if to catch himself.
We're all falling into the great trough,
I want to say but don't.

I can't imagine his world without
imagining the end of mine.
Who will sit in this lovely yard
and write poems? There's no doubt
someone will, someone from the dying planet
who will look over at the pines
and remember his past and smile.
The wind will blow apples
down, the autumn sun will shine,
and he'll hear the jay calling
for no reason other than to file
a complaint that the bird bath
is dry as a bone.
In the end, we all bow our heads in exile,
and prepare, in our own ways, for the fall.

~ from Michigan Poet, November 2012

Now, please leave your links with the dashing Mr. Linky below. I’m looking forward to reading all your wonderful poems, reviews, and musings this week!

Thanks so much for joining us. Please stay safe, be well, don’t forget to vote, and have a nice weekend. 🙂

“November” by Maggie Dietz

November 9, 2018November 8, 2018 ~ jama ~ 40 Comments

*“La Belle Jardiniere – November” by Eugène Grasset (1896)*

Ah, November!

The eleventh month often gets a bad rap. Sometimes described as “somber,” “gloomy,” or “dreary,” it’s neither here nor there.

October, with its splendid, crisp days and peak foliage is quintessential autumn — a very hard act to follow. As Anne Shirley famously said, “I’m glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

Poor November. Shock of color gone, trees showing their bare bones, chilly winds — suddenly we’re reminded of year’s end, darkness to come. We reflect on our unmet resolutions, mourn the transience of time. At least December has much to distract us with its holiday cheer and bustle, a winter welcome tied with a pretty red bow.

And yet.

*“Autumn Leaves” by John Everett Millais (1856)*

Good things happen in November. It’s my birthday month (as well as Len’s, my dad’s and brother-in-law’s). It’s a time to honor veterans (like my mom), and of course, there’s Thanksgiving, when the house smells of spiced cider, roast turkey, homemade pies, squash and pumpkin everything.

A time for gathering in, but also gathering together. Expressing gratitude. Feasting. Who wouldn’t love a month where food takes center stage?

So I’m okay with this take stock, get ready, fortify yourself month. It’s my chance to bask in the fading light and exquisite melancholy. Shorter days? More time for reading and dreaming. 🙂

*“November Freshet” by John Ottis Adams (1897)*

NOVEMBER
by Maggie Dietz

Show’s over, folks. And didn’t October do
A bang-up job? Crisp breezes, full-throated cries
Of migrating geese, low-floating coral moon.

Nothing left but fool’s gold in the trees.
Did I love it enough, the full-throttle foliage,
While it lasted? Was I dazzled? The bees

Have up and quit their last-ditch flights of forage
And gone to shiver in their winter clusters.
Field mice hit the barns, big squirrels gorge

On busted chestnuts. A sky like hardened plaster
Hovers. The pasty river, its next of kin,
Coughs up reed grass fat as feather dusters.

Even the swarms of kids have given in
To winter’s big excuse, boxed-in allure:
TVs ricochet light behind pulled curtains.

The days throw up a closed sign around four.
The hapless customer who’d wanted something
Arrives to find lights out, a bolted door.

~ from That Kind of Happy (University of Chicago Press, 2016).

Maggie Dietz received a BA from Northwestern University and an MA from Boston University. She is the author of That Kind of Happy (University of Chicago Press, 2016) and Perennial Fall (University of Chicago Press, 2006), winner of the 2007 Jane Kenyon Award from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. Dietz has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, and Phillips Exeter Academy, among others. She previously served as director of Robert Pinsky’s Favorite Poem Project, coediting three anthologies related to the project. She currently teaches at the University of Massachusetts–Lowell and lives in New Hampshire.

The beautiful, talented, and exceedingly clever Michelle Barnes is hosting the Roundup at Today’s Little Ditty. With bed head and election results, she’s somewhat of a basket case this week, sharing fab poems with commentary. And do I love all the bear talk? Why yes, yes I do. Check out the full menu of poetry goodness and have a delicious Novemberish weekend.