Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Open / Openness

�. . . Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. 

Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.� 
? Rainer Maria Rilke

�It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. � 

? Carl Sagan

Midweek Motif ~ Open / Openness

According to Wikipedia: 

Openness is an overarching concept or philosophy that is characterized by an emphasis on transparency and free, unrestricted access to knowledge and information, as well as collaborative or cooperative management and decision-making rather than a central authority. Openness can be said to be the opposite of secrecy.

Whew!  That's a lot of information.  I love that the root of the word is "open," which means much more than transparency. 

What do the motifs of open and openness help you to think about?  What's the first thing that comes to mind?  

My first thought was of Whitman's "Song of the Open Road," excerpted below, which now seems like part of a past golden age, no longer possible.  And it was no golden age at all in the USA, with so many enslaved as if they were not equal.  I may "open" that idea further.

Your challenge: Make your new poem an ode to openness or to something which is open-able in some way. 

Song of the Open Road

BY WALT WHITMAN

1

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,

Healthy, free, the world before me,

The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,

Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,

Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,

Strong and content I travel the open road.

The earth, that is sufficient,

I do not want the constellations any nearer,

I know they are very well where they are,

I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

. . . . 

Read the rest HERE

Effort at Speech Between Two People

BY MURIEL RUKEYSER

:  Speak to me.          Take my hand.            What are you now?

   I will tell you all.          I will conceal nothing.

   When I was three, a little child read a story about a rabbit

   who died, in the story, and I crawled under a chair    :

   a pink rabbit    :    it was my birthday, and a candle

   burnt a sore spot on my finger, and I was told to be happy.

:  Oh, grow to know me.        I am not happy.        I will be open:

   Now I am thinking of white sails against a sky like music,

   like glad horns blowing, and birds tilting, and an arm about me.

   There was one I loved, who wanted to live, sailing.

:  Speak to me.        Take my hand.        What are you now?

   When I was nine, I was fruitily sentimental,

   fluid    :    and my widowed aunt played Chopin,

   and I bent my head on the painted woodwork, and wept.

   I want now to be close to you.        I would

   link the minutes of my days close, somehow, to your days.

. . . . 

Read the rest HERE

Who Understands Me but Me

BY JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA

They turn the water off, so I live without water,

they build walls higher, so I live without treetops,

they paint the windows black, so I live without sunshine,

they lock my cage, so I live without going anywhere,

they take each last tear I have, I live without tears,

they take my heart and rip it open, I live without heart,

they take my life and crush it, so I live without a future,

they say I am beastly and fiendish, so I have no friends,

they stop up each hope, so I have no passage out of hell,

they give me pain, so I live with pain,

they give me hate, so I live with my hate,

they have changed me, and I am not the same man,

they give me no shower, so I live with my smell,

they separate me from my brothers, so I live without brothers,

who understands me when I say this is beautiful?

who understands me when I say I have found other freedoms?

. . . .

Read the rest HERE.

*** 

Please share your new poem(s) using Mr. Linky below and visit others 

in the spirit of the community

(Next week Susan's Midweek Motif will be Secrecy.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Energy, Vitality

�It's all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. 
It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.� 
? Susan Sontag

�If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms 

of energy, frequency and vibration.� 
? Nikola Tesla

�. . . I think love is that condition in the human spirit so profound, 
that it allows us to forgive, and it may be the energy 
which keeps the stars in the firmament,   I'm not sure. 
It may be the energy which keeps the blood 

running smoothly through our veins.� 

? Maya Angelou

Midweek Motif ~ Energy, Vitality

I'm thinking of the opposite of lethargy, when enthusiasm for living translates a certain possibility into physical expression.

Electricity can do that too.

Your Challenge:  Write a new poem about (and pumped full of) energy.

~~~

I Hear America Singing

BY WALT WHITMAN

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter�s song, the ploughboy�s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day�at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

I, Too

BY LANGSTON HUGHES

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I�ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody�ll dare

Say to me,

�Eat in the kitchen,�

Then.

Besides,

They�ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed�

I, too, am America.

Excerpt from To a Skylark

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

         Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!

                Bird thou never wert,

         That from Heaven, or near it,

                Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

         Higher still and higher

                From the earth thou springest

         Like a cloud of fire;

                The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation)

~~~

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others 

in the spirit of the community.

*** *** ***

(Next week, Sumana's Midweek Motif will be Colors. )

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Teacher, One Who Teaches

�Eragon looked back at him, confused. "I don't understand."
"Of course you don't," said Brom impatiently. "That's why

 I'm teaching you and not the other way around.� 

? Christopher Paolini, Eragon

�Let us pick up our books and our pens,� I said. �They are 

our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher,

 one book and one pen can change the world.� 

source

? Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala

�It was my teacher's genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact which made the first years of my education so beautiful.

? Helen Keller, The Story of My Life

Midweek Motif ~ Teacher 

One Who Teaches

World Teachers' Day, held annually on October 5 since 1994, commemorates teachers� organizations worldwide. Its aim is to mobilize support for teachers and to ensure that the needs of future generations will continue to be met by teachers. We're a couple of days late, but still ...

Your challenge:  Bring a great teacher memory to life in a new poem. Or, if you don't have one, use learning as your motif.

An Old Man�s Thought of School

Written by Walt Whitman

AN old man's thought of school,
An old man gathering youthful memories and blooms that youth itself cannot.

Now only do I know you,
O fair auroral skies - O morning dew upon the grass!

And these I see, these sparkling eyes,
These stores of mystic meaning, these young lives,
Building, equipping like a fleet of ships, immortal ships,
Soon to sail out over the measureless seas,
On the soul's voyage.

Only a lot of boys and girls?
Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes?
Only a public school?
Ah more, infinitely more;
(As George Fox rais'd his warning cry, "Is it this pile of brick and
mortar, these dead floors, windows, rails, you call the church?
Why this is not the church at all-the church is living, ever living souls.")

And you America,
Cast you the real reckoning for your present?
The lights and shadows of your future, good or evil?
To girlhood, boyhood look, the teacher and the school.

Learning to Read

BY FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER

Very soon the Yankee teachers

   Came down and set up school;

But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it,�

   It was agin� their rule.

Our masters always tried to hide

   Book learning from our eyes;

Knowledge did�nt agree with slavery�

   �Twould make us all too wise.

But some of us would try to steal

   A little from the book.

And put the words together,

   And learn by hook or crook.

I remember Uncle Caldwell,

   Who took pot liquor fat

And greased the pages of his book,

   And hid it in his hat.

. . . . 

                                           (Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation)

Lecciones de lengua

BY BRENDA C?RDENAS

She is proud of her pap?

because he comes

to their little grey school,

converted from army barracks,

to teach espa?ol

to Mrs. Brenda�s fifth grade.

And that means they don�t

have to listen to that awful

Se?ora Beister on TV

with her screech owl version

of �Las ma?anitas� and her annoying

forefinger to the ear . . . . 

               Escuchen

and then to the lips,

               y repitan.

He teaches them to order

Coca-Cola en el restaur?n�

               Se?or, quisiera una Coca, por favor�

. . . . 

          (Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation .)

****************

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below 
and visit others in the spirit of the community.

(Next week Sumana Roy's prompt will be FIRE. )