My Favorite Poem

[theworm[$]]

I must admit that sometimes I feel a bit intimidated by the expert "bookies" at EA. I love to read, but I'm not nearly as well-read, passionate or knowledgeable as most of you. I know that there are those of you who love Edna and Edgar. I've read beautiful quotes and wonderful excerpts from you all, and I fear that I can’t share anything as lovely or as profound. I do have a poem that I first read in high school English class, and that I’ve always loved. It’s simple, but its message is one that has gotten me through some tough times. I wanted to share it with you. I hope that you enjoy it, too!

YES IT HURTS

Yes it hurts when buds burst.
Why otherwise would spring hesitate?
Why otherwise was all warmth and longing
locked under pale and bitter ice?
The blind bud covered and numb all winter,
what fever for the new compels it to burst?
Yes it hurts when buds burst,
there is a pain when something grows
and when something must close.
Yes it hurts when the ice drop melts.
Shivering, anxious, swollen it hangs,
gripping the twig but beginning to slip--
its weight tugs it downward, though it resists.
It hurts to be uncertain, cowardly, dissolving,
to feel the pull and call of the depth,
yet to hang and only shiver--
to want to remain, keep firm--
yet want to fall.
Then, when it is worst and nothing helps,
they burst, as if in ecstasy, the first buds of the tree,
when fear itself is compelled to let go,
they fall in a glistening veil, all the drops from the twigs,
blinking away their fears of the new
shutting out their doubts about the journey,
feeling for an instant how this is their greatest safety,
to trust in that daring
that shapes the world.

Karin Boye

(Translated from the Swedish by May Swenson) in Half Sun Half Sleep by May Swenson, 1967

[murasaki]

Thanks, worm! I hadn't read this poem before.

--naomi

[poseidon]

There once was a man named McGrass
Whose balls were made out of brass
When he rubbed them together
They played "Stormy Weather"
And lightning shot out of his ass.

Of course, it's not as insightful as the poem listed above... but hey, they can't all be.