The weekend, with its delights, is beginning early. This afternoon there will be a meet up of the summer migrants, my friend and another (we share an alma mater) who make an annual summer migration to the West Cavan/Leitrim environs. It feels like vacation for the year round residents, too. Poetry practice may be sacrosanct, but I am rushing it a bit in anticipation of future treats!
This evening I am looking forward to attending a lecture on Sheela na gigs over at Teach Ban, a cottage beside the Drumcliffe Graveyard where W. B. Yeats’ bones were finally interred in Irish soil (or maybe not, because they may have exhumed the wrong body.) Although this visit will be tinged with a certain sadness. Something is missing from the churchyard. It’s the first time I have visited since the sculpture by local artist Jackie McKenna was stolen. Another friend was the model.
I am still wanting to explore the breadth and limitations of this quotation poem form. To reprise, it is a five line poem: Line 1 being the quotation, the second line is something about or from the past, the third line is an action, the fourth line is the the theme and the final line is something about the future.
When I woke up this morning I was thinking “I wonder what Zora Neale Hurston has to say?” Apart from being a writer and a fellow lover of the djembe drum, Zora rocked a hat worn with a very authoritative and jaunty angle. (Envy!) In her life, there were hard rows to hoe, but in her writing there is something not just so resilient, but ebullient. Go seek her out in the library. Here is the quotation:
There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
Zora Neale Hurston
There are Years
There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing here?
The who and where and what could get problematic.
The core of the apple is the seed of this 'I.'
Harvest is the response to the universe's call.
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Sojourning Smith 