Poetry Sunday: Insect Life of Florida by Lynda Hull

I must say the insect life of Florida sounds very like the insect life of Southeast Texas. Our days are filled with "their endless thrum." Especially the cicadas. And our nights are now "metallic with cicadas, musical and dangerous as the human heart."

Insect Life of Florida

by Lynda Hull

In those days I thought their endless thrum

was the great wheel that turned the days, the nights.

In the throats of hibiscus and oleander

I’d see them clustered yellow, blue, their shells

enameled hard as the sky before the rain.

All that summer, my second, from city

to city my young father drove the black coupe

through humid mornings I’d wake to like fever

parceled between luggage and sample goods.

Afternoons, showers drummed the roof,

my parents silent for hours. Even then I knew

something of love was cruel, was distant.

Mother leaned over the seat to me, the orchid

Father’d pinned in her hair shriveled

to a purple fist. A necklace of shells

coiled her throat, moving a little as she

murmured of alligators that float the rivers

able to swallow a child whole, of mosquitoes

whose bite would make you sleep a thousand years.

And always the trance of blacktop shimmering

through swamps with names like incantations—

Okeefenokee, where Father held my hand

and pointed to an egret’s flight unfolding

white above swamp reeds that sang with insects

until I was lost, until I was part

of the singing, their thousand wings gauze

on my body, tattooing my skin.

Father rocked me later by the water,

the motel balcony, singing calypso

with the Jamaican radio. The lyrics

a net over the sea, its lesson

of desire and repetition. Lizards flashed

over his shoes, over the rail

where the citronella burned merging our

shadows—Father’s face floating over mine

in the black changing sound

of night, the enormous Florida night,

metallic with cicadas, musical

and dangerous as the human heart.

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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