Poetry, poets, and books: another day longing for literary trails

I'm currently taking a course, "Twelve Poets to Change Your Life," with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg through TLAN. We started with Emily Dickinson—so naturally, she’s been blooming in my thoughts lately. 

I spent much of my weekend in the garden. I'm happiest when I have dirt under my fingernails. After repotting plants and tending to those friends in the ground, I finished reading the spring sections of Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life by Marta McDowell.

Flowers, poetry, and the quiet joy of digging in the earth. 

The second poet of focus this week is Walt Whitman. I  appreciate his ability to celebrate the individual spirit and the vastness of the American experience through imagery. His poetry inspires a sense of connection and self-reflection that feels timeless. 

I used one of the course prompts to compose my own poem, aiming to capture a personal perspective while honoring the tone that characterizes Whitman’s work.

My 51st Year

After the crest of half a century,


Through fog and flame, the spare seasons, the scattered joys,


My mother’s silence now a constant hum,


My father yearning to breathe free— almost eighty-seven,
gathering the light like bread, breaking it.

A new post— in halls once proud with purpose,


Now flickering, ivy fading, gasping in the marble—


Academia, fallen cold and dying? Or maybe just unvalued,


Scorned by those who forget who first opened the page for them.

The world at war again, though not always declared —


the homeless refused, children buried, cities razed— 

the names change,


but death is always the same.

 

And on Flag Day we’re told


to raise banners for a fool in a suit,


those clapping their own backs while


the hungry, tempest-tost, are hushed. 

Yet still — I lift my lamp beside the coffin door, walking —


through campus corridors, past empty chairs,


through streets that forget themselves,


past memorials that call only in whispers.

I reflect still. I write still.


Reporting in — not to salute, but to stand,


and not in uniform,


but with pen and pulse,


that glows with world-wide welcome.

Of course, literature reminds me of my other place to be—the cemetery. While people complain of humidity, especially this time of year, I long to be soaked in my own sweat in a cemetery on a mission to find a story of an author. How I am daydreaming about visiting Dickinson's grave in West Cemetery in Auborn.

These thoughts draw me back to another book, my copy of Literary Trail of Greater Boston by Susan Wilson, which was published when I lived in Massachusetts. Revisiting its pages reignited my interest in the places that connect writers to the landscapes they inhabited. When I lived there, I was a poor high school English teacher just out of grad school with little income and a hefty student loan, so I did not have much leisure time to visit all the places in Wilson's guidebook but I did walk the streets following the tour paths. I went to Walden Pond walking the path to Thoreau's cabin site. 

Now, sitting here on my porch, I’m itching to return and walk the grounds of Forest Hills Cemetery, pay tribute to the poets buried at Mount Auburn, and stand at Author’s Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery—places where the presence of literary voices still lingers.