Month: March 2015

Blades of Grass

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

imageYesterday morning stretched into late afternoon and I went
to bed without supper.

So now, awake, I just had a snack and
ended with a half-slice of good bread, loaded with butter.

I’m mentioning this as I wipe my hand on my pj top! Ah, this top
carries a memory or two of other snacks, before it hits the laundry.
Such an irreverent beginning for this really wonderful poem I share
with you today:

“Doesn’t the world demand

We dance?

Doesn’t it insist on it?

And why not? Look

At the leaves,

Look at the weeds.

Look at the least blade

Of grass in the breeze.
None of them begs off

Or offers excuses.
None of them refuses.”

………GREGORY ORR. From his book of 124 pages
of his story of the “River Inside the River”.

With such simplicity we can quietly find our way.

always with love,
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette

Smiles

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

imageI crossed the room to open the computer to share just the greatest idea with you. By the time I had turned on the computer, opened email, and went to share that  greatest idea, I could not imagine why I had chosen that particular one, and I started to turn the page.

Here’s what the page said,
“The smile is the shortest distance between two persons.”

The quote was signed by VICTOR BORGE.

YES!
Can you remember Victor Borge? the minute I read his name,
I started to smile. Borge sat at the piano on TV, and over an ongoing patter
of music, he would tell short stories that made us laugh. I could be
alone in my room and yet each time I would feel as if I had been in tune
with lots of others.

Since I’m smiling to myself at 3:17am, I can wish you a good morning
and go happily back to bed.

I have chosen the right quote.

always love,
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette

Care-Fully

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

imageI’ve just put down a book of poetry and the first few pages
have pushed me into sharing with you how much I wanted to go back to the beginning page, use it’s title, the next page use its title, squeeze it all in because it was so wonderful.

I cannot share this carefully because the result has been
I love it,… I care fully for the inspiration of the poet
that has pulled me into his orbit and I want you to hear it all.

There are 3 sections of one poem after another. The first section
is called ‘Eden and After’.

The first poem of this section is called ‘To Speak’, the next, ‘To See’,
‘To Write’, ‘To Name’. Here’s ‘To Name’:

“God wanted labels
That would stick
To fur or bark or leaf.

Hadn’t he given Adam
A tongue?
Why not have him name?”

Two more poems on is the poem, ‘To Verb’:

“The beasts were beasting,
The birds, birding about —

Everywhere Adam looked
He saw moving tokens
Of becoming’s task —
Clearly their glory
Was spoken as motion,
But to praise them
He needed
More precise words.

‘Floating’, ‘Sniffing’,
‘Gliding’, ‘Drifting’ —

‘Burrowing’, Soaring’,
‘Grunting’, ‘Roaring’ —

He’d poked among the shrubs
And noted they were stable.
Now, he gazed at birds flying
Wherever they whimmed.

Maybe his tongue was a root,
But weren’t his verbs wings?”

…………and so it goes.

…by Gregory Ørr, in his book of lyric sequences, River Inside the River.

always with love,
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette