Wednesday, September 07, 2005

this is to be

I can't sleep so I've decided to post one of my very favourite poems: this is to be by Peggy Dragisic ahhh... this is to be pregnant with sun every limb fruit-full satisfied heavy this is to be golden, not Midas metal but apricot taut and tender stuffed with light I have harvest babies apricot burnished babies russet apple gleaming chestnut babies winter-sown summer-grown harvest babies optimistic babies in disregard of brunette genes to come out so copper coloured as if to say Mom mind's gloom's quite absent in body's womb there, Mom, it's all sun four eyes across the picnic table all blue two round bad and merry two long in tangled shadows two noses, mouths, four ears, legs, arms, twenty fingers! twenty toes! beyond all arithmetic love-stuffed cells of aweful life uncountable I had to do a presentation on this in my poetry course last year. So of course, I have read this poem hundreds upon hundreds of times, liking it more after each reading.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Salam Asmaa,

Should you not be in bed!? :)

Anonymous said...

that poem has made me hungry

Ameera said...

This poem sounds like an expecting mother having a very pleasant dream... *sigh*... how cute!

Stylus Virus said...

hey asm,
it's better centered ;)

p.s: isn't it "Mom's mind gloom's" (rather than "Mom mind's gloom's" ?) That's what I remember anyway. Take care

Anonymous said...

You didn't tell me that Ibrahim goes to Ryerson. I saw him yesterday, and he's giant-like. I swear, I was looking into the sky to talk to him. And puberty certainly did a number on his voice. Seriously.

I'm not trying to be mean about the giant thing. He's just really tall. In a good way.

Asmaa said...

Hey Sheikh, yeah it does look much better centred, but I can't figure out how to centre it. Yeah, I know I'm lame. And I checked and it actually is "Mom mind's gloom's" :)

Sara, yeah my brother is going to Ryerson for some reason. But, in these past 2 days I think he's spent more time playing basketball at the RAC than in class. He was saying how the seats in one of his classes are too small for him (his knees are jammed against the seat in front of him). So he resorted to lying down on the floor. Haha.

Man, I wonder what you guys talked about.

Anonymous said...

We didn't really talk about much. Just salams and how surprised I was to see him.

Anonymous said...

Hello: This is the very first time I've "blogged". I'm Peggy Roffey, was Peggy Dragisic in 1975 when I wrote The Medley; now one of those harvest babies (the one with the blue eyes "round bad and merry" has a baby and knows what it means now to be pregnant with sun. Whoever ARE you? What a lovely thought, that someone in 2005, THIRTY years later, was still reading that little chapbook. Thanks! Peggy

asma said...

My favourite childhood poem since childhood:

As I walked to school today
a squirrel hurried by
Fetching nuts to fill his store
too busy to be shy
High above, I heard the sound
the wild duck's echoed call
In the sky, a v-shaped sign
announcing time for fall.