study the lives of May Sarton and Sara Teasdale in May/June 2008 and share my findings here

although I want to take more time and read more of May Sarton’s memoirs.

All in good time, right?

Now, to consider my focus for July/August and plan on going back to one person in September….

I seem to have pulled away from Sara somewhat, in favor of the deeply-felt-soul-sister connection with May. Today I heard “find Sara” so I did… and this is the poem that called to me.

The Sanctuary

If I could keep my innermost Me
Fearless, aloof and free
Of the least breath of love or hate,
And not disconsolate
At the sick load of sorrow laid on men;
If I could keep a sanctuary there
Free even of prayer,
If I could do this, then,
With quiet candor as I grew more wise
I could look even at God with grave forgiving eyes.

Interesting – I always thought “aloof” to be an unattractive thing, but in seeking its definition after thinking “why aloof, Sara, why?” I discovered a definition more akin to “detached” which is something I seek. Hmmm. Look yourself here: adj. Distant physically or emotionally; reserved and remote: stood apart with aloof dignity. adv. At a distance but within view; apart.

MELANCHOLY

Crawl under the roots of a tree
No one needs you any longer.
You the destined solitary,
You can sleep away the hunger
That is tearing you apart,
Woman with an open heart.

No one’s mother, no one’s child
Living in unsheltered space
Be the stranger reconciled
To the absence of a face,
To the end of family,
Never able to say “we”.

Woman with an open heart,
Close the valve now, dull the beat
Sleep away the stop and start.
You will find enough to eat,
Friendly trees to shelter you
And the ocean often blue.

You will comfort with a word
Others who are lost like you,
You will celebrate a bird,
Sing the song of falling snow
Become balm for every hurt,
Woman with an open heart.

On the ashes of this nest
Love wove with deathly fire
The phoenix takes its rest
Forgetting all desire.

After the flame, a pause,
After the pain, rebirth.
Obeying nature’s laws
The phoenix goes to earth.

You cannot call it old
You cannot call it young.
No phoenix can be told,
This is the end of the song.

It struggles now alone
Against death and self-doubt,
But underneath the bone
The wings are pushing out.

And one cold starry night
Whatever your belief
The phoenix will take flight
Over the seas of grief

To sing her thrilling song
To stars and waves and sky
For neither old nor young
The phoenix does not die.

(originally published in THE SILENCE NOW, 1988)

Please check out this link… and be sure to read/scroll enough to see her glorious face at, what, 80 years old?!

I love her!

Today, I am focusing on this poem from Sara Teasdale:

“It Is Not a Word”

It is not a word spoken,
Few words are said;
Nor even a look of the eyes
Nor a bend of the head,

But only a hush of the heart
That has too much to keep,
Only memories waking
That sleep so light a sleep.

Sara Teasdale

+ + + +

I continue to be amazed at how these women speak directly to me through their words… I wonder, “how did I find them? right here, right now?” and I truly don’t know.

I just know that I did and now I am perpetually, endlessly, wondrously grateful.

Now, off to make pancakes….

“I would like to believe when I die that I have given myself away like a tree that sows seed every spring and never counts the loss, because it is not loss, it is adding to future life. It is the tree’s way of being. Strongly rooted perhaps, but spilling out its treasure on the wind.”

She and I are such soul sisters!

From yesterday’s and continuing!)poem:

“I have been dissolved and shaken” are words from poet/memoirist May Sarton in her poem “Now I Become Myself”. These words describe how I felt yesterday while once again attempting to communicate with educational bureaucrats on behalf of my son, Samuel.

I felt myself dissolving, like baking soda in vinegar, erupting like my own personal Mt. Vesuvius until I heard a Divine Voice, “What do you get from getting this upset?”

I stopped, mid-explosion and breathed, silently, mindfully.

I don’t like being upset that way.

I breathed, mindfully, and surrendered to the reality that shifting out of upset was something I was able to control.

“What are the facts?” the Divine Voice asked me.

I wrote some of the facts on paper so that I could see them more clearly instead of allowing the facts to co-mingle with opinion, judgment and the sometime subtle scraping of emotional scabs from recently inflicted hurt.

This morning I sat at my desk before dawn, typing facts into a document which I will deliver later to a variety of personnel within the School District. My words were carefully chosen and mindfully delivered. I wasn’t upset as I wrote them though I was deeply passionate and devoted to my son and my cause.

May Sarton wrote further:

“Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.”

This is what happened when I allowed myself the privilege of listening to Divinity. If I hadn’t been open to the message, I imagine I would still be rushing around in that space of upset – which isn’t the most effective place to work or be an effective change agent.

Because I allowed myself to hear Divinity, my heart is heard and those scraped scabs of emotions are able to heal more completely.

It simply feels so much better.

May Sarton continues:

“O, in this single hour I live”

As I live, choosing no longer to be dissolved and shaken, but instead I am centered, a calm amidst storm clouds, a forceful presence of stillness while the winds blow all around me.

I will choose this way of being in this single hour, in my next single hour and in my next single hour.

In this single hour I live, you live, we live.

My prayer is that you live it well, with passion, with presence, with love – and with space to hear those Divine questions that appear from time to time. Respond to those questions.

Learn from the questions and as my friend Rainer Rilke said, live from them.

I was attracted to this poem because I thought it was entitled “Let it Be”... the forgotten was a surprise to me, one who treasures memory. Intriguing to look from this perspective and the images are lush.

Let it be Forgotten
Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold.
Let it be forgotten forever and ever,
Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
Long and long ago,
As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall
In a long-forgotten snow.

Sarah Teasdale

Is going to be my focus of today.

Now I Become Myself
May Sarton
Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
“Hurry, you will be dead before—”
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

I loved writing from yesterday’s poem, so I figured I would do the same, allow May and Sara to reach out and teach me, today.