A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman

In honor of Halloween, I decided to write my poetry blog on something that scares me everytime I see it.

Ok, so really the poem isn't about a hairy 8-legged creature coming to eat me. But the way he breaks up the poem makes it easier to understand. The first stanza is talking about the actual spider, while the second is talking about a soul. Breaking up the two makes the metaphor easier to catch because it shows a shift between talking about two things.

In those two different stanzas, are two antecedent scenarios. One is obviously that he spent a day watching a spider find a place to spin its web. The other, which is shown to be still happening because of the use of the verb stand, is that his soul somehow found it way into an empty space where it is now searching for a place to hold on to and stand.

Describing the theme is going to make me sound like a real poetry geek who emphatically talks about how this poem really spoke to them and they connected with their own feelings.  But it's the truth. I get that he is saying that his soul (whether that be his personal soul or a companion who he considers his soul) is waffling around is this lonely, empty space. Trying to make connections with people, reaching for a safe place to put their foot down. The soul is just waiting to make that stronghold where that catches hold and they are able to swing back.

Ethics by Linda Pastan

I really liked the timeline this poem gives. She has these multiple years of listening to the question and never having the life skills to know the true answer. I can see her sitting there as a freshman feeling overwhelmed by it and life seeming the obvious answer. Then, as a sophmore trying harder to come up with an answer and choosing art. Next, as a junior, finally feeling credited enough to give a clever answer. And feeling quiet in her contemplation as a senior, imagining her own grandmother. All of these personas show me that this is much more than a simple question. There are so many different choices to make. And then finally, she finds herself in that museum, much later once she has lived life, and trying to answer that question again. It's seems as though she is saying the painting is so complex, just like her life, that someone who hasn't lived long enough or gone through hardships won't possibly be able to make the correct decision. But, there also seems to be something I'm missing. She obviously seems to mean something by describing the painting and then saying that woman and painting and season are beyond saving. I'm just not making the connection of those back to the beginning with the ethics and differing opinions.

In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver

The theme of this poem seemed to be that everyone needs to learn to love even though what they love will someday leave them.
The first half is showing that it happens in nature. The trees are dying, but are accepting it as fulfillment of what needed to happen. The cattails are moving on. The pond is becoming unimportant because important things have names. She creates this picture of things leaving, but the way she describes it makes it seem as though it's natural. The trees and the cattails and the ponds aren't fighting it because it's part of what they know needs to happen.

Then, she starts to describe it for the human. The three things she talks about are really just about not being afraid to love. It's kind of cool how she says it in such a way that the kind of love doesn't really matter. It could be romantic love or the love for a child or really just a love for a friend or a thing that will one day end. I don't think the word 'mortal' necessarily means that it's a human, but just something that will end. 

It's also really interesting that she doesn't show what she's talking about until the very end. The reader goes 6 and 3/4 stanzas before we actually understand what she's saying. But despite this, she gives the reason that those three things are necessary before she even presents them. She creates the picture of crossing a firepit and raging river of the loss of losing one's love, but also creates the picture of coming out better on the other side. That is really the reason the we all "must be able to do these three things."

I really enjoyed this poem and I thought that it was very coincidental that I was comtemplating and struggling with my own sense of fear for loss when I sat down to read a poem for my blog.

The Little Lamb

Looking around,
I see the anguish
the frustration.
What can I do to help?

I must remember that
it's not my worry.
There is someone else for that
someone for me to
 put my trust in.

I must not get so upset
because he is here

for me.

But it is hard...
there are so many
troubles in the world
and I want to help them
all.

So I turn to the others
to remember why I
do this...
say this...
am this.

I am not so strong
that I don't need help
too.

It's so much easier with
The Shepherd
carrying me.