Found Poetry
I once took a class on journal writing at The Loft, a local literary hot spot. In this casual coffee house-like setting, Natalie Goldberg–guru to contemporary poets and aspiring writers alike–offered insights into finding inspiration in novel places and everyday experiences.
Eyes newly opened to focus on my surroundings, I approached my writing differently from then on. Maybe I’m just lazy at heart, but the concept of “found poetry” particularly fascinated me.
Fast-forward a few decades and I have inherited reams of saved papers bequeathed by parents and parents-in-law. This has been both a challenge and a blessing. But I encourage anyone in a similar situation to be on the lookout for creative treasures tucked among the old bank statements and titles to homes long since deserted by your ancestors. Gems from yesteryear often hide among those cracked and yellowed sheets of vellum.
As I peer out my window this early April morning, my view resembles soggy tundra more than a field of daisies. However the following unearthed bit of literary sunshine written by my paternal grandmother over 100 years ago has warmed my day and tickled a smile into place on my winter-wearied face. Hope it does the same for you.
The Heart of Spring by Dorothy Helene Young, May 21, 1916 (Age 16)
The promise of morning is in the spring night
At the edge of the world is a blue gleam of light
On the top of the hill in the rosy hued dawn
Pan pauses a moment – pipes – and is gone
On such a sunny morning when the clouds float soft and high
And the lark’s song is sweet in sounding and the dew is scarcely dry
The marshy lowland’s glimmer and the uplands sweet with rain
Are lying bright and silver in the springtime sun again
Spring shows its garlands wondrously, its fairy breezes sigh
The wood is cool and deep and still where velvet shadows lie
The leaving trees are fresh and green and the sap runs swift and high
“This is the truest life of all” is the heart’s joyous cry
Spring calls to me, “Come back again, thou wanderer to thy mates
Thy destiny is woven in the thread of the three fates”
But though I live at the edge of the road, in a house with an open gate
I am chained here by other ties, thy summons comes too late