My Life Is Beauty

Summer Afternoon, Shinnecock, by Julien Alden Weir

Meditation on a Summer Afternoon

All the riches of the world exist in shadows

of a walnut tree on sunny summer

afternoons: the small, arresting flutter of

a leaf in a listless breeze; the cleaving

scent of earth and pine and grass and

honeysuckle heavy on the vine; the

rough-and-tumble scratching of a

dozen squirrels in a frantic scramble

branch to branch, and suddenly

they’re statues munching fat, firm

nutmeats, littering with shards of

shell my cluttered yard that I shall

rake another day; plump robins, in

shy trepidation, venturing to search

for succulent gourmet delights, then,

frightened off by someone’s slamming

of a door, they dash away on wing

and call a warning to their mates.

Nearby a brash woodpecker hammers,

hammers more, persists in hammering

upon a maple tree. I clap my hands,

applauding, and to see what he will

do. He quits, and then resumes.

A book of poetry sits idly on my lap,

unlooked at. Pages turn upon a

breath of air; perhaps, I fancy, there’s a

spirit there, enjoying Blake. I listen to my

children at the neighbor’s, splashing in a

plastic pool and laughing with the

unrestraint that grace bestows on

childhood; and down the street, somebody

mows a tidy lawn that’s lined by rows of

peonies, exuberant and lush, absurdly

pink or deep merlot.

Pink peonies (photo by Fanghong)

Something sighs contentedly. Perhaps it’s

I, or else a pixie living in a tribe beneath

the shrubbery. Nothing weighs on me. I

feel so light that I’m surprised to find

myself still sitting on my tattered quilt upon

the grass instead of simply rising, chasing

birds or playing tag with bees. But I am

earthen still, and glad of it, delighted to

be wrapped in humid air; it moves

sufficiently to cool my skin and curl my

hair. The ground is warm, a comfort, womb

of seed and tiny creature curled in sleep,

awaiting dusk.

As shadows must, they lengthen and the

laughter shrills. The time has come. I will

collect the children and go in. I brush away

the thought, just for another minute’s

taste of pure serenity, but also fond

anticipation of the dinner hour—cheddar

cheese and melon salad, I decide, and

lemon pie, and then the bedtime stories

that transport us to exotic climes. The

time has come, but I have evening yet to

savor. Summer comes in such abundant

flavors—warmth and coolness,

thunderstorm, forsythia and clover, early

sunrise, tall and motley hollyhocks—I feast

upon them all.

Assignment 35.1

Every day if you can — but at least twice a week — choose a moment out of the day you have just experienced and write about it metaphorically in the poetic form of your choice. I hope you will do this for the rest of your life. It will prevent your “running on empty,” á la Jackson Browne … or, perhaps even worse, running on autopilot. Entire spans of years of my life, when I was not living poetically or contemplating things by writing poetry, are a blur to me now, and sometimes I go back and try to recapture those lost moments, as in “Meditation on a Summer Afternoon,” above.

Excerpted from the online course How to Write Poetry and Live Poetically at http://preview.tinyurl.com/o5tjeah
See also http://www.hayhouseradio.com and http://www.soniachoquette.com.