The holidays and their attendent madness kept us all away from Nuala for a bit, but I meant to talk about Aubade, and now I have to talk about it.  Some jerk ran into my husband’s car last week.  He’ll be ok, and this poem will rattle about in my brain-pan for a while.  I am making do with today’s happenings, and I’m immensely grateful.

I love poetry because I love language and rhythm.  But I love particular poems for the same reason that I love particular stories or paintings or people–because they connect to some particular part of me and mine.  The first time I read this poem, I knew that the writer knew what it was like to mother children and care for family and self when life is hard.  That matters to me.  I had a tough kidhood.  I have a tough adulthood sometimes.  The truth of getting by, of making do, of patching up broken things and broken days is what keeps us here, and what helps us live when tragedy strikes, whether it’s the tragedy of lost love or poverty or broken bones or death. 

Aubade
translated by Michael Longley

It’s all the same to morning what it dawns on —
On the bickering of jackdaws in leafy trees;
On that dandy from the wetlands, the green mallard’s
Stylish glissando among reeds; on the moorhen
Whose white petticoat flickers around the boghole;
On the oystercatcher on tiptoe at low tide.

It’s all the same to the sun what it rises on —
On the windows in houses in Georgian squares;
On bees swarming to blitz suburban gardens;
On young couples yawning in unison before
They do it again; on dew like sweat or tears
On lilies and roses; on your bare shoulders.

But it isn’t all the same to us that night-time
Runs out; that we must make do with today’s
Happenings, and stoop and somehow glue together
The silly little shards of our lives, so that
Our children can drink water from broken bowls,
Not from cupped hands. It isn’t the same at all.

Nuala says it better than I can.  Our hawk was in the yard when we came home from the hospital.  I was glad to see him, and to know that he wasn’t as frightened as I was. 

Trackback URI | Comments RSS