Poem Elf

Today’s elf assistants are dear to my heart—my grand niece Lucy, aged 12, and my grand nephew Gus, aged 10. You’ll have to take my word for it that these are two funny, charming, sweet-hearted kids, but you can see for yourselves, from their selections and the very fact that they took up this challenge, that they are grand in every sense.

Thanks to Lucy for choosing an Emily Dickinson poem. I often avoid Dickinson because I think she’s difficult to understand. Lucy made me remember how I used to love Dickinson, before I got intimidated by her, for her thrilling descriptions of nature. . . the lightning skipped like mice. . . Great job, Lucy!

Respite

by Emily Dickinson

The clouds their backs together laid,

The north begun to push,

The forests galloped till they fell,

The lightning skipped like mice ;

The thunder crumbled like a stuff—

How good to be safe in tombs,

Where nature’s temper cannont reach,

Nor vengeance ever come !

Hi! My name is Lucy and here I have attached my poem picture! I choose a poem by Emily Dickinson and it is about her describing a storm. Since it was sunny outside I tried to find a place to put it that it was in the shade, so that it looked like a storm was coming. I choose this poem because I have read it before and then when I saw that I could take a picture for this little challenge I had a great photo idea. I think that this was such a cool idea, so thank you!

—Lucy

[If you are wondering why my young relative felt it necessary to introduce herself to me. . . cute story from my niece, her mother:

So I had to laugh. Lucy had me read her very formal email before she sent it and I said “Lucy, you know who Poem Elf is, right? It’s Aunt Maggie.” and she thought I was kidding😉 took a lot to convince to her! ]

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Gus may have chosen the perfect coronavirus poem. Don’t sneeze indeed! And a very clever placement. Way to go, Gus!

The Acrobats

by Shel Silverstein

I’ll swing

By my ankles,

She’ll cling

To your knees

As you hang

By your nose

From a high-up

Trapeze.

Just one thing, please,

As we float through the breeze—

Don’t sneeze.

I put the poem on the monkey bars. I chose it because it was funny, and I chose to put it on the monkey bars because it is about acrobats.   —Gus

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NOTE:  Still accepting submissions for my 10-year collaboration project. Send your pictures to thepoemelf@gmail.com.

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Today’s guest poster is Mary Follen of Portland, Oregon. Her positioning of Robinson Jeffers’ poem “To the Stone-Cutters” is so thoughtful (Poet’s Beach! could it be more perfect?) and enriches my experience of the poem and hopefully the passers-by’s experience of the riverbank. I had heard of Jeffers but was not familiar with him or his fascination with rocks. Thank you, Mary, for the introduction!

And heeeeeeere she is! Take it away, Mary!

To the Stone-Cutters

by Robinson Jeffers

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you fore-defeated

Challengers of oblivion

Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,

The square-limbed Roman letters

Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well

Builds his monument mockingly:

For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth dies, the brave sun

Die blind, his heart blackening:

Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found

The honey peace in old poems.

Dear Poem Elf—

I am so delighted to be invited to be a “poem elf assistant” to help celebrate 10 years of this wonderful offering to the world! I have loved your postings and eagerly open each new entry. (Thank you!) I especially loved your recent moving tribute to the English teacher who died of Covid 19. You could have been describing my beloved older sister, retiring this year after a long career teaching English to “America’s future” as she so wryly says. Alas. . . this year she should be going out with bang. . .  she too was one of those life-changing amazing teachers. . . but instead it will be a whimper. . . and an on-line one at that. Such strange, sad times.

Melancholy times call to mind dour poets, perhaps! Who more dour than Robinson Jeffers, eh? This “Poet’s Beach” is a small, pocket park on the banks of the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon. There are “poem fragments” about the river written by children, etched into the stones. . . indeed, words already wearing away in the rain. In these days of uncertainty and anxiety, more than ever I turn to nature and poetry to taste the “honey of peace,” in old poems and ancient stones.

More info:

The poet Robinson Jeffers (1887 – 1962) studied geology in college and worked in stone all his life. In 1914 Jeffers and his wife moved to Carmel, CA. To build a home, Jeffers first hired a local builder and then worked alongside him, learning the art of stonemasonry. By 1919 Jeffers was hauling boulders up from the beach, shaping them, and using them to add rooms to the home, which he named Tor House. Later, he built the four story Hawk Tower, named for a hawk that appeared while Jeffers worked on the structure, and disappeared the day it was finished. The Tor House Foundation maintains the house and grounds for visitors and preserves the legacy of Robinson Jeffers.

As Morgan Mussell (a writer who blogs at thefirstgates.com) writes, “Jeffers’ work with stone is central to his austere poetic vision of a human spirit that longs to fly like a hawk and find something that lasts, but in the end acknowledges that in this life, it can do neither.”

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