DO YOU KNOW that today is Poem in Your Pocket Day? Celebrate verse and its authors today by carrying and sharing a poem you especially treasure. Maybe you’ll choose one of our faves, like Lucille Clifton’s “Sisters”, or any of those we gathered a while back when we were compiling our very own commonplace books. For more inspiration, be sure to check out the website of the American Academy of Poets, the fine folks who organize this special day, every year. In honor of the day, another sister poem, this one by Rainer Marie Rilke:
The Sisters
Look how the same possibilities
unfold in their opposite demeanors,
as though one saw different ages
passing through two identical rooms.Each thinks that she props up the other,
while resting wearily on her support;
and they can’t make use of one another,
for they cause blood to rest on blood,when as in the former times they softly touch
and try, along the tree-lined walks,
to feel themselves conducted and to lead;
ah, the ways they go are not the same.
Me? It’s nearly impossible to choose, but I’m taking a bit of Emily with me today. How about you, sisters?
Special thanks to The Unquiet Librarian for the image above!
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Well rats. Another day missed to add to the ever growing list. No pie on Jan 23rd, no nerdy math jokes on March 14th… the saga continues and my streak holds.
In a better late than never grab, I’ll simply say if I HAD been “in the know” for Poem in my Pocket day, the one I WOULD have carried around this year would be:
The Art of Poetry by Stan Rice (from Red to the Rind)
You might get it mentally,
You might get it in the groin,
You might not get it at all.
But it’s not to make pretties
Poets write. Nothing human
Is more primitive than a poem.