Stardust

(Stars, engraving by Christoph Weigel, 1654-1725, German engraver and publisher)

In 2008, after she was appointed U. S. poet laureate, Kay Ryan talked to journalist Andrea Seabrook.

Seabrook: You said your poems are almost an empty suitcase.

Ryan: Well, I've always been extremely enamored of cartoons and cartooning, in which you have essentially just the outline, and I think if you leave something empty but charged in some way, not overly elaborated, you can have a surprising number of things come out of people when they read it. That's what I'm hoping, anyhow, and I mean, the truth is, it just is my constitution to do things that way.

Seabrook: To keep things sparse but powerful?

Ryan: Really simple, yeah. Well, hopefully. I mean, that would be the ideal.

STARDUST

Stardust is
the hardest thing
to hold out for.
You must
make of yourself
a perfect place —
something still
upon which
something settles —
something like
sugar grains on
something like
metal, but with
none of the chill.
It’s hard to explain.

~ Kay Ryan, born 1945, American poet, appointed poet laureate, 2007-2010

Why We Must Struggle

(William Morris Stamp Set issued May 2011 by the Royal
Mail of the United Kingdom)

Yesterday, the MacArthur Foundation announced that the poet Kay Ryan has been awarded one of its Fellowships, popularly called a Genius Grant: “Her mode of expression is a disarmingly clear and accessible style, characterized by concision, rhyme, wordplay, and wit.”

Ryan had previously been honored with the appointment of United States Poet Laureate from 2008 to 2010.

Why must we struggle? asks the poet.

Anything of worth, including love, demands the best of us.

WHY WE MUST STRUGGLE

If we have not struggled
as hard as we can
at our strongest
how will we sense
the shape of our losses
or know what sustains
us longest or name
what change costs us
saying how strange
it is that one sector
of the self can step in
for another in trouble
how loss activates
a latent double how
we can feed
as upon nectar
upon need?

~ Kay Ryan, born in 1945, American poet

A Plain Ordinary Steel Needle Can Float on Pure Water

(The Broken Obelisk by Barnett Newman,
1915-1970, American artist; one of several
such sculptures, this is located in Houston,
Texas, as a memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr.)

A mark of true friendship is that it changes us, quietly, gently, for the better.

“If we speak of the happiness of this life, the happy man needs friends, . . . not, indeed, to make use of them, since he suffices himself, nor to delight in them, since he possesses perfect delight in the operation of virtue; but for the purpose of a good operation, in other words, that he may do good to them; that he may delight in seeing them do good; and again that he may be helped by them in his good work. For in order that man may do well, whether in the works of the active life, or in those of the contemplative life, he needs the fellowship of friends.”

~ Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Italian philosopher, priest, theologian, and author of the most influential commentaries on the philosophy of Aristotle, from his Summa Theologica

A PLAIN ORDINARY STEEL NEEDLE CAN FLOAT ON PURE WATER

Who hasn’t seen
a plain ordinary
steel needle float serene
on water as if lying on a pillow?
The water cuddles up like Jell-O.
It’s a treat to see water
so rubbery, a needle
so peaceful, the point encased
in the tenderest dimple.
It seems so simple
when things or people
have modified each other’s qualities
somewhat
we almost forget the oddity
of that.

~ Kay Ryan, born in 1945, American poet

The Pieces That Fall to Earth

(Kay Ryan, poet laureate, 2007-2010)

THE PIECES THAT FALL TO EARTH

One could
almost wish
they wouldn’t;
they are so
far apart,
so random.
One cannot
wait, cannot
abandon waiting.
The three or
four occasions
of their landing
never fade.
Should there
be more, there
will never be
enough to make
a pattern
that can equal
the commanding
way they matter.

Kay Ryan, born 1945, American poet

The Fourth Wise Man

(Travels of the Three Kings by Salvador Dali, 1904-1989,
Spanish Surrealist painter)

“Three Kings came riding from far away, / Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar.” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

THE FOURTH WISE MAN

The fourth wise man
disliked travel. If
you walk, there’s the
gravel. If you ride,
there’s the camel’s attitude.
He far preferred
to be inside in solitude
to contemplate the star
that had been getting
so much larger
and more prolate* lately —
stretching vertically
(like the souls of martyrs)
toward the poles
(or like the yawns of babies).

~ Kay Ryan, born 1945, American poet

* prolate - in geometry: having a polar diameter which is longer than the equatorial diameter

It’s Always Darkest before the Dawn

(Hayley Mills in the title role of Pollyanna, the 1960
Disney film)

What can you do when misfortune comes your way?

You can follow the example of Pollyanna, the orphan in the 1912 classic children’s story by Eleanor Porter (as explained in the abridged passage below from the novel).

“You don’t seem ter see any trouble bein’ glad about everythin’,” retorted Nancy, choking a little over her remembrance of Pollyanna’s brave attempts to like the bare little attic room.

Pollyanna laughed softly. “Well, that’s the game, you know, anyway.”

“The — game?”

“Yes — the ‘just being glad’ game. Father told it to me, and it’s lovely. We’ve played it always, ever since I was a little, little girl.” In the gathering twilight her face looked thin and wistful. “Why, we began it on some crutches that came in a missionary barrel.”

“Crutches!”

“Yes. You see I’d wanted a doll, and Father had written them so; but when the barrel came the lady wrote that there hadn’t any dolls come in, but the little crutches had. So she sent ’em along as they might come in handy for some child, some time. And that’s when we began it. The game was to just find something about everything to be glad about — no matter what ’twas. And we began right then — on the crutches.

“I couldn’t see it, at first. Father had to tell it to me. Just be glad because you don’t — need — ’em!”

Or you can just keep in mind the old saying that it’s always darkest before the dawn.

IT’S ALWAYS DARKEST BEFORE THE DAWN

But how dark
is darkest?
Does it get
jet — or tar —
black; does it
glint and increase
in hardness
or turn viscous?
Are there stages
of darkness
and chips
to match against
its increments,
holding them
up to our blindness,
estimating when
we’ll have the
night behind us?

~ Kay Ryan, born 1945, American poet