Words for Wednesday (on Thursday)

I was going through some files this morning and came across a poem my mother sent me. She sent it because it is a beautiful poem. But she also sent it because of the title, Delphiniums in a Window Box. A.A. Milne not only wrote wonderful stories for children, he was an accomplished poet as well. Many of his poems are part of my families everyday lexicon including a line from this verse which opens his poem The Dormouse and the Doctor:

There once was a Dormouse who lived in a bed
Of Delphiniums (blue) and geraniums (red)
And all the day long he’d a wonderful view
Of geraniums (red) and delphiniums (blue)

This verse gives such a picture of contentment. Delphiniums and geraniums are lovely flowers and are some of my favorites. My mother had delphiniums planted in her garden outside her backdoor. Unfortunately a bush (affectionately known as “The Little Shop of Horrors”) overtook them. But she always has geraniums (red) planted in her front yard. Whenever I see them I think of Milne’s poem.

Delphiniums in a Window Box also paints a lovely picture – an aching longing that infuses each moment of life with an ending that will echo in your head long after you have finished reading. It was written by contemporary poet Dean Young. Young has written several poetry books including his latest Bender: New and Selected Poems. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Poetry Prize and has received both a Stegner Fellowship as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship. The poem below appeared in the May 18, 2009 issue of The New Yorker.

Delphiniums in a Window Box

Every sunrise, even strangers’ eyes.
Not necessarily swans, even crows,
even the evening fusillade of bats.
That place where the creek goes underground,
how many weeks before I see you again?
Stacks of books, every page, characters’
rages and poets’ strange contraptions
of syntax and song, every song
even when there isn’t one.
Every thistle, splinter, butterfly
over drainage ditches. Every stray.
Did you see the meteor shower?
Did it feel like something swallowed?
Every question, conversation
even with almost nothing, cricket, cloud,
because of you I’m talking to crickets. clouds.
confiding in a cat. Everyone says,
Come to your senses, and I do, of you.
Every touch, electric, every taste you,
every smell, even burning sugar, every
cry and laugh. Toothpicked samples
at the farmers’ market, every melon,
plum, I come undone, undone.

— Dean Young

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