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Friday, September 14, 2012

Poetry Friday -- Stars

Flickr Creative Commons photo by Mouser NerdBot


Stars

If you never
venture
into the dark
you'll never know the stars.

Venture
away from human lights:
look up, look well, look far.

Into the dark
go without fear:
the stars wink down at you.

You'll never know the stars
unless
you change your point of view.


© Mary Lee Hahn, 2012



I'm (quite) a few weeks behind on Tricia's Poetry Stretches. This is my trimeric, from the August 20th Stretch.  The pattern is abcd, b_ _, c_ _, d_ _.  I gave myself the further challenge of making it rhyme.

This poem goes out to Orion, my buddy who watches over me August-December when I walk at 5:30 in the morning.

This week, Diane has the Poetry Friday roundup at Random Noodling.

20 comments:

  1. What a fun poem! Great job, Mary Lee.

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  2. Love that first stanza!! This whole thing is beautiful. Between you and Linda today, I am now enamored of the trimeric.

    And Orion. Back in the day, I played Bunny in John Guare's THE HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES. To this day I remember one line, my favorite: "It's Orion, the Irish constellation!" Tell him I said hi.

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  3. Love this! This line will stick with me... look up, look well, look far...

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  4. Wonderful, such talent.

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  5. Exquisite, Mary Lee! And the way you live your life too, which makes it even better. Thank you for this one!

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  6. Mary Lee--
    Wow, wow, wow! I am going to hang that first stanza on my wall. Gorgeous!

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  7. Love that "venture" and the poem and the thought of you walking at 5:30 am (I too walk early mornings!). Thanks for sharing.

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  8. As you will see, I too am enamored of that trimeric, Mary Lee. This is the essence of your experience, so beautifully told. Many layers here!

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  9. And the last verse is a killer, too! Great job, Mary Lee.

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  10. Love your poem, ML! You expressed such a beautiful truth.

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  11. Mary Lee, I love this! Beautifully written, it just flows so nicely. You express a similar sentiment to a poem I wrote about a year ago, "Perspective," which I'll be featuring NEXT Friday!

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  12. Wow this is really wonderful. I love how you did it with so few but powerful words.

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  13. just got home from our first Poetry Friday celebration! Love your closing stanza for so many reasons! Thanks for sharing.

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  14. What a beautiful poem! I'm going to use it since we're discussing point of view! Lots to talk about - we're reading Wonder aloud and then small groups are reading books with characters who are different in some way (Rules, Out of My Mind, Anything But Typical, Joey Pigza, etc.) to teach empathy - we can read this poem as a metaphor! Thank you for writing it!

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  15. Well done, Mary Lee. It's really beautiful. I need to remember that writing with form can be surprising results. Thanks for the poem and the form.

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  16. The rhyme in the last line works so well, Mary Lee. I think of Whitman's "When I Heard the Learned Astronomer."

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  17. Love how this poem works on different levels, Mary! I can see a kid whose afraid of the dark reading it and thinking, maybe there is something good about the dark. And for those of us in a rut, it's a challenge to get out of it; try something new, or look at things from a new angle. And of course, it's a prod to get out and look at the stars.

    This is the second trimeric I've read this week (other one at Teacherdance Linda). Beautiful form, perfect for reflection! I am itching to try one.

    Violet N.

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  18. Lovely...and those last lines will stay with me.

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  19. Anonymous4:59 PM

    Oh, what a wonderful form! And what a lovely poem. Mary Lee, your poetry is just getting better and better!

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