Portugal and Poetry
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
~T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
Saudade is a gorgeous little word I encountered recently during a trip to Portugal. It describes a sort of deep longing for something you love, but don’t possess. It is said to reflect the emotional temperament of the Portuguese people, or maybe even their way of being, and according to people who know about such things, it does not have an exact English translation. Although saudade (pronounced sau-daad) probably derives from the Latin solitās, meaning solitude, in Portugal, it has a connotation of deep melancholy and suggests an aching desire or nostalgia for some beloved thing one is missing—a place, a person or maybe a feeling.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about this word and, specifically, how it seems to me a perfect word to describe the driving force behind many art forms and especially, poetry. In my mind, saudade is a deep yearning that moves poets—and other artists—to seek, with open eyes and hearts, all that is beautiful and terrible in the world.
Although I am reticent—or maybe too shy—to officially call myself a poet, lately I have been reading and writing quite a bit of poetry and that is probably why this lovely new word has landed so powerfully in my consciousness. To me, the word seems to name something I know, but can’t quite explain: the place of possibility between what is and what may happen next or the feeling of being fully awake to a world of astonishing and extraordinary surprises, or maybe, as Eliot suggests, that sweet space in time where memory and desire collide. It is exactly the unrealized, unknown, or heartbreakingly missed aspect of this thing or place or person that makes it so powerful and compelling and also that creates the space—and impetus—for poetry.
I guess this is all just to say, I’ve been writing a lot of poems lately…
Married to New York
Out the window by my desk
night sheds its inky skin
to announce the soft birth of a new day
its warm glow and baby blue sky
Start spreading the news
I wonder at the wonders
this day may reveal
in a city I claim, but is no more mine
than on the day I arrived
I’m leaving today
For decades now, she has seduced and
eluded me, double dog dared me
to keep her, despite my good common sense
and uncommon good will
I want to be a part of it
But she scoffs at my fidelity
winsome and grotesque
shrugs my efforts to slip a leash
around my own hapless neck
New York, New York
Although I hate to admit it
she really is all she seems:
endless possibility and never-ending filth,
glittering dead ends and incessant hope
These vagabond shoes
Her colossal heart and frigid soul,
her illicit touch, her wet kiss
splashing on my lips, onto my new dress
and into my veins
are longing to stray
I am both head over heels and
in over my head,
fearless, breathless and
helpless to leave her
right through the very heart of it
although I often want to
New York, New York
Pisces Season
I dive into March like liquid silk
supple and sleek swimming in
a deep pool of want and abundance.
My dream: to breathe underwater and
glide inside the soar and dip
of this watery sky its echo of blue
a broad and endless daylight
where all my parts become
a single murmuration
Gift for a Teacher
When you do this job for a long time, you see patterns
Waves of kids who are smart and cool,
Patches of jaded and mean. Others excited,
Cooperative or curiously
Brilliant, or bored
Benign.
But occasionally, you see that kid
This year a boy, but often a girl
And his eyes twinkle when he walks through your door
And while you’re talking, he nods his affirmation
At all those sudden thoughts
That have suddenly occurred to him
And you know that he has done the reading
With care
And he shyly offers his insights
Like flowers or an apple for your desk
Trying hard to mask his delight
But the other kids know, hate him a little,
But not enough for it to matter
Later you are sitting at your desk, bleary eyed
Pen in hand, trying to do no harm
And maybe a little good
With this pile of papers
And you come to his essay
Which makes this hard thing easy
His writing has said something new
Something you’ve never thought of
Something true
And your happiness is deep and clear
And you know that you can’t say thank you
But you want to
And although he is much too smart, too curious
To linger long by this particular door
At this particular time
In this particular place
You wonder if he will remember,
Someday,
That you were his teacher
When he learned to open it.
Heart on my Sleeve
My heart is caught in my throat today
and I see more clouds than sun
love me anyway
I think under my breath
and blow this wish into the air
like a spent dandelion or
a whispered please
I could slip deep into the deep
of this vague death this blur and fog
a shadow in my dream
last night, where
I couldn’t find my car
and forgot to let the cat
out of my suitcase
so that now she is gone again
even the people at the service counter
couldn’t help
and neither can you
but I pry anyway, this
big soft pillow I call a heart
out of my throat and
onto my sleeve
just in case you might want to
help me find my car
or open the suitcase
to let the cat out
Dancing Alone
Early today
as I wrestled with the
morning and pulled
a favorite sweater
over my head
I felt the unexpected comfort
of my own warm skin and
the lingering scent of
my own perfume
how to describe it?
a soft bath of lilacs or
a blanket of sweet tea
my mother’s gentle blue eyes
laughing into mine
the whisper of
a memory surfacing
from the deep
pool of
my solitary heart
or dancing very close
to myself
alone in the kitchen.
