The English Teacher In Me Can't Help It...

My girlfriend, Olivia, who has to be one of the most brilliant women I know (she is a published novelist who lives a charmed life eating lost of yummy baked goods in New York City. She wrote this book. You should buy it; it's good and funny and sounds just like you are having a conversation with her when you read it, which is what makes it good and funny.) shared this poem on her blog. I was really, really moved by it and wanted to share it with all of you. Read it. I would love to know your thoughts- No 5 paragraph essay discussing its profound imagery or its longing tone is due, just, consider it, and then let me know how it reaches you!!

It made me feel like hugging Jaren as tightly as I could still wasn't holding him tight enough.



Yellow Stars and Ice
by Susan Stewart

I am as far as the deepest sky between clouds
and you are as far as the deepest root and wound,
and I am as far as a train at evening,
as far as a whistle you can't hear or remember.
You are as far as an unimagined animal
who, frightened by everything, never appears.
I am as far as cicadas and locusts
and you are as far as the cleanest arrowthat has sewn the wind to the light
on the birch trees. I am as far as the sleep of rivers
that stains the deepest sky between clouds,
you are as far as invention, and I am as far as memory.
You are as far as a red-marbled streamwhere children cut their feet on the stones
and cry out. And I am as far as their happy
mothers, bleaching new linen on the grass
and singing, "You are as far as another life,as far as another life
are you."And I am as far as an infinite alphabet
made from yellow stars and ice,
and youare as far as the nails of the dead man,
as far as a sailor can see at midnight
when he's drunk and the moon is an empty cup,
and I am as far as invention and you are as far as memory.
I am as far as the corners of a room where no one
has ever spoken, as far as the four lost corners
of the earth. And you are as far as the voices
of the dumb, as the broken limbs of saints
and soldiers, as the scarlet wing of the suicidal
blackbird, I am farther and farther away from you.
And you are as far as a horse without a rider
can run in six years, two months and five days.
I am as far as that rider, who rubs his eyes with
his blistered hands, who watches a ghost don his
jacket and boots and now stands naked in the road.
As far as the space between word and word,
as the heavy sleep of the perfectly loved
and the sirens of wars no one living can remember,
as far as this room, where no words have been spoken,
you are as far as invention, and I am as far as memory.