POETS ONLINE ARCHIVE - ELEGIES
Elegy - from the Greek
elegeia which means "song of mourning" - an interesting idea,
to sing your mourning... Poetry anthologies are filled with them.
Marie
Howe takes the
form in a somewhat different direction in her poem
"What
The Living Do."
Written to her brother, it sings a song of living as it sings her
song of mourning. Write your own elegy. We'll be loose with the form.
Sing an elegy to someone, some thing, a lost time or opportunity -
elegies were meant to heal and praise.
(The elegy, a type of lyric poem, is usually a formal lament for
someone's death. The term elegy is sometimes used in a broader sense
as a lament for something lost. In antiquity it referred to anything
written in elegiac meter, which consisted of alternating lines of
pentameter and hexameter. Some classic elegies to look at: Thomas
Gray - "Elegy
Written in a Country Churchyard"
Shelley - "Adonais"
Whitman - "When
Lilacs Last in the Door yard Bloomed"
Rainer Maria Rilke - "Duino
Elegies"
Federico Garcia Lorca - "Lament
for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias"
)
We speak of Marva
As IS
No past tense with
her.
No past tense here.
No. She is now
and forever will be
with us:
her beads
her hearty laugh
her generous good will
her dance
her jewelry
her stories (almost
always
of mischief)
her brave daughter
We close our eyes and see
her
now:
Big Brash Beautiful
Bounty all over and within her
outside of her -- radiating out
then
in her, in us
honest
almost brazen
Then -- her hearty
laugh
winking in conspiracies of fun
sisterhood
brotherhood
an elder and a child
a child
a mother
a grandmother
The maker of jokes
the butt of a few
always knowing better
and anticipating friendship
a friend with the purpose
of
friendship
more friendship
and more
And why not?
Dance
Laugh
Together
Marva!
Marvelous Lakota. . .
with us
now
and forever.
Thank you for living with us well.
SilkThe silk spreads the ivory
skin,
with each slight gust,
she waves her satin goodbyes.
In the humidity of the night,
clinging tight to her breast,
a new layer
as soft as that which remains
hidden beneath--
fingers slide
across her smooth back,
knowing that she is slipping
and fading
just as fast
as she came,
never telling
who you will love,
and who you will lose.
Behind The Veil
Heaven where she stays
hold me from your knowing light,
surrounded by darkness as I write.
When summer had all but
passed,
I returned to where I first awakened
to you, and found you coldly taken,
and the spring before had been your last.
Deceptive gardener who
prunes the bud
in spring to make the stronger bloom
has cut in haste -
the whole tree withers.
Careful - when you place
your trust
and sleep beneath that perfumed tree
and evening comes and you awake
to find your pillow, not down, but dust.
Mine is an empty sound
that falls on only my own ears.
Curse my tears
on this barren ground.
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