A Favorite of Mine

Miracle

Like some old-fashioned miracle

When Summertime is done,

Seems Summer’s recollection

And the affairs of June.

As infinite tradition

As Cinderella’s bays,

Or little John of Lincoln Green,

Or Bluebeard’s galleries.

Her Bees have a fictitious hum,

Her Blossoms, like a dream,

Elate—until we almost weep

So plausible they seem.

Her Memories like strains—review—

When Orchestra is dumb,

The Violin in baize replaced

And Ear and Heaven numb.

-Emily C.

When I first read this poem, i didn't quite get what it was talking about, but I liked the rhymes and the almost-rhymes, so I tried to figure it out. I realized it meant how everything seems to be put on hold when summer ends, like time is stopped and we can survive on memories until the summer comes again. I found that I agree withf that and this little poem captures that feeling well.

"It is difficult to get the news from poetry, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." - William Carlos Williams

The first time I read this quote, my brain screeched to a halt. What does that mean???? But slowly, I figured out what Mr. Williams may have been trying to say. He does not mean that poetry kills people. This is a metaphor. He means that people who don't put in the effort to find this "news" within poetry, which is most likely the shallower and deeper meanings within the stanzas, lose something. They are missing or lacking in their mindsets, which causes them to "die" in a symbolic sense. The people who deny themselves the depth of poetry "starve," which we can all agree, is a miserable way to "die."