I really like having fresh flowers! Last week, I bought 2 bouquets of flowers from WF. One tulip and one ranunculus. They are still going. I took some photos. I just feel more spring looking at them in my apartment! It makes me feel good.
Anyways. Three more weeks of school. I am really ready for a break. I’m getting so lazy about school. Although I am still doing well, I need a break to regroup and refocus.
I have to do a poetry presentation for my Lit class. I’m not really sure how I’ll get through that. I’m not looking forward to it at all. I’m a mess when I have to stand up in front of a whole class and talk. I decided to do my presentation on Rainer Maria Rilke, since I’m not really a fan of poetry, but like some of his stuff, and have already read one of his books and know a little about his life. The only problem is, he is a German poet, and is not very well known in America, I assume. So I’m not sure how relevant he is to this Intro class. I’m thinking about maybe trying to find a feminist poet? I’m not a fan of poetry at all, so I don’t really know of any.
Here are some poems I am thinking of using for the presentation:
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The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”
And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.
We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It’s in them all.
And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.
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Lord, it is time. This was a very big summer.
Lay your shadows over the sundial,
and let the winds loose on the fields.
Command the last fruits to be full;
give them two more sunny days,
urge them on to fulfillment and throw
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.
Who has no house now, will never build one.
Whoever is alone now, will long remain so,
Will watch, read, write long letters
and will wander in the streets, here and there
restlessly, when the leaves blow.
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Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes–do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall. |
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| Ignorant Before the Heavens of My Life
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Ignorant before the heavens of my life,
I stand and gaze in wonder. Oh the vastness
of the stars. Their rising and descent. How still.
As if I didn’t exist. Do I have any
share in this? Have I somehow dispensed with
their pure effect? Does my blood’s ebb and flow
change with their changes? Let me put aside
every desire, every relationship
except this one, so that my heart grows used to
its farthest spaces. Better that it live
fully aware, in the terror of its stars, than
as if protected, soothed by what is near.
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The future: time’s excuse
to frighten us; too vast
a project, too large a morsel
for the heart’s mouth.
Future, who won’t wait for you?
Everyone is going there.
It suffices you to deepen
the absence that we are.
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Look how the same possibilities
unfold in their opposite demeanors,
as though one saw different ages
passing through two identical rooms.
Each thinks that she props up the other,
while resting wearily on her support;
and they can’t make use of one another,
for they cause blood to rest on blood,
when as in the former times they softly touch
and try, along the tree-lined walks,
to feel themselves conducted and to lead;
ah, the ways they go are not the same.
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