Tuesday, January 6, 2009

The Two Best Poems

In The Arc Of Your Mallet
by Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī


Don't go anywhere without me.
Let nothing happen in the sky apart from me,
or on the ground, in this world or that world,
without my being in its happening.
Vision, see nothing I don't see.
Language, say nothing.
The way the night knows itself with the moon,
be that with me. Be the rose
nearest to the thorn that I am.

I want to feel myself in you when you taste food,
in the arc of your mallet when you work,
when you visit friends, when you go
up on the roof by yourself at night.

There's nothing worse than to walk out along the street
without you. I don't know where I'm going.
You're the road, and the knower of roads,
more than maps, more than love.

(translated by Coleman Barks)


A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
by John Donne

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.



Oh, and this poem is so good, too:

Poem
by Frank O'Hara

Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head

hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed

oh Lana Turner we love you get up




I should be Lana Turner; but instead, I'm Rumi without Shams Tabrizi. Actually, I think I'm Shams.


Monday, January 5, 2009

Michelle Frizzle, Chancellor of D.C. Magic School Buses

I whined to Neema yesterday that all I ever wanted to do anymore was shop. He said that I should start spending time writing again because it is something fulfilling to me.
Instead I'm blogging. I'm not sure if that's much of a cure. Over winter break, I facebook stalked lots of people and the most fabulous of the bunch blogged. Lots of them blogged about shopping. Once I had a Teach for America blog. I wrote about teacher clothes.

I'm a English/Language Arts teacher in a small town on the U.S.-Mexico border. I am torn between wanting to look like Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus



and this description of Michelle Rhee, from a Time Magazine article:

She emerged from her chauffeured black SUV with two BlackBerrys and a cell phone and began walking--fast--toward the front door of the first school. She wore a black pencil skirt, a delicate cream blouse and strappy high heels. When we got inside, she walked into the first classroom she could find and stood to the side, frowning like a specter. When a teacher stopped lecturing to greet her, she motioned for the teacher to continue. Rhee smiled only when students smiled at her first.

I think I look somewhere in-between. I can't wear cream; I am too messy. I can't have a pet lizard; I am too irresponsible. I can't drive a school bus and I can't afford a chauffeur. I drive my own black SUV. High heels make my feet hurt and I have yet to find the perfect purple flats.


I crave shopping and write about clothes because I'm not sure I like teaching. I AM sure that I love biryani. Since I don't know how to make it, here's a recipe for cookies*:


Oh, great, I can't find my recipe for cookies. They're really good cookies, perfect with a cup of Earl Grey tea.



* I am not/refuse to be a "foodie."