A touching, elegant poem by Donald Hall about his wife Jane Kenyon during her final illness.
Tag Archives: metaphor
Friday Poem of the Week: Life as a Metaphor for Baseball
Life as a Metaphor for Baseball
Listening to my team lose on the radio this afternoon
I thought about all the phrases baseball players use to encourage each other
Like “Easy out!” and “I got it!” “Make him hit it to me!” “We got this one!”
And “Wait ‘til next year!”, and also
About philosophical outlooks: everybody gets three strikes and
You’re alive until you strike out or fly out or ground out
But then you might hit it big and homer for a grand slam
And every team gets twenty-seven outs and the game isn’t over until it’s over
You win some, you lose some, and some are rained out,
But you have to dress for them all.
So keep your eye on the ball, choke up and just try to meet the pitch,
Swing level, follow through and see what happens.
And oh yes, hold your head high, cheer up and be of good faith:
Here comes another pitch.
–Dan Verner
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Poem of the Week: For My Student, Upon Her Rejection of My “Easy Praise”
For My Student, Upon Her Rejection of My “Easy Praise”
(a creative writing student who went on to become a successful writer and novelist)
Forgive me when I say
You do not know what you are talking about.
I who have trekked the high parched deserts of indifferent expression
And labored through low tedious swamps of lack of intent
Know what it means to stand on the pinnacle of a high mountain
In clear air and fresh wind
To hold the fragile moment of the first light of day
Dawning on the distant horizon
And know that it is good.
And so, though my praise be twenty times too much
For you and your work,
I promise you this, my young writer:
It is still apt and it is still true.
–Dan Verner
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Biscuit City 