Attached

Poems are just like that. A tiny fawn was dashing around the garden this morning. A new friend in the world, I thought while placing stakes around the daisies, which seem set to bloom next week. Also this morning, the tulip poplar started dropping its sunlight-and-saffron-colored petals from the heights.

Now in my heart there shall I grave
The granted grace that now I taste:
Thanked be fortune that me gave
So fair a gift, so sure and fast.

My daughter asks if I have figured out what type of knot to use for tying lengths of twine to the stakes, creating a fence for the flowers. I tell her I had narrowed it down to two hitches, which I’ll test out. It’s nice that she’s interested in my problem, though not necessarily helping me with these chores.

Lo, since that so it is assign’d
That unto each a time there is,
Then blame the lot that led my mind
Some time to live in love’s bliss.

The doe approached slowly to clean and then feed her fawn. Her presence magically paused the little one in its leaping around. I came inside and helped my other daughter organize and store her dorm room stuff for the summer in her closet here at home.

By proof of that that I have passed,
Shall never cease within my breast
The power of Love so late outcast:
The knot thereof is knit full fast…

I’ve noticed that most love poems have some complaint or excuse as their core. Which seems strange since love itself is most fully itself when it centers in attention and gratitude. Poems are just like that: contradictory.

This poem by Sir Thomas Wyatt (partially quoted throughout this post) does beg excuse for the folly of love while asserting the wealth that comes from the effects of falling. I’m contemplating this, while petals keep falling, while I plot to keep my daisies from falling, while falling seems inevitable, necessary.

If anyone asks why read poetry, this is why. To leap, and then be calm, to become stronger.