All That is Gold Does Not Glitter - J.R.R. Tolkien

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

____

The poem has a tenderness to it: it says that some gold is harder to see, that a person who wanders is not necessarily lost; that what matters in the long run is what remains strong inside. 

The second stanza supposes a death and rebirth. It takes the moment where all hope would seem to be lost, and suggests that that is where a flame will ignite. The “blade that was broken” has a prophesying significance for the world Tolkien created, but it’s symbolic for any precious instrument that’s been damaged and can be remade.

The word “again” indicates that this is how it is, that it’s happened this way and it will happen again. 

Golden Retrievals - Mark Doty

Golden Retrievals - Mark Doty

Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention
seconds at a time. Catch? I don’t think so.
Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who’s—oh
joy—actually scared. Sniff the wind, then

I’m off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue
of any thrillingly dead thing. And you?
Either you’re sunk in the past, half our walk,
thinking of what you never can bring back,

or else you’re off in some fog concerning
—tomorrow, is that what you call it? My work:
to unsnare time’s warp (and woof!), retrieving,
my haze-headed friend, you. This shining bark,

a Zen master’s bronzy gong, calls you here,
entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.

____

I like Doty’s personification of the dog as a reminder to be present. The dog also appears to have a short attention span—jumping from excitement to excitement—but it works as a counterpoint to the human’s fixation on the past and future. Together, maybe the human can learn from the dog’s sage advice to be more in the moment. 

Thither - Samuel Beckett

Thither
by Samuel Beckett

thither
a far cry
for one
so little
fair daffodils
march then

then there
then there

then thence
daffodils
again
march then
again
a far cry
again
for one
so little

away dream all away

I love the sounds in this poem: the repetition of “f” noises like in “fair daffodils” and the “th”s, alongside the repeated “-ɛn” noise in “then” and “again.” They’re soothing, and at the same time heavy, and match up well with the light noises in “one / so little.”

The poem’s progression from “then there” to “then thence” gives the sense of something distant that gets farther away. But because of the repetition in the third stanza, it doesn’t really go away.

The poem grows by repeating itself, seeming to go somewhere while staying right where it began, until the very end, which comes like a wish.

Chemotherapy - Julia Darling

Chemotherapy
by Julia Darling

I did not imagine being bald
at forty four. I didn’t have a plan.
Perhaps a scar or two from growing old,
hot flushes. I’d sit fluttering a fan.

But I am bald, and hardly ever walk
by day, I’m the invalid of these rooms,
stirring soups, awake in the half dark,
not answering the phone when it rings.

I never thought that life could get this small,
that I would care so much about a cup,
the taste of tea, the texture of a shawl,
and whether or not I should get up.

I’m not unhappy. I have learnt to drift
and sip. The smallest things are gifts.

The Fist - Derek Walcott

The Fist
by Derek Walcott

The fist clenched round my heart
loosens a little, and I gasp
brightness; but it tightens
again. When have I ever not loved
the pain of love? But this has moved

past love to mania. This has the strong
clench of the madman, this is
gripping the ledge of unreason, before
plunging howling into the abyss.

Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live.

The Price - Stuart Henson

The Price
by Stuart Henson

Sometimes it catches when the fumes rise up
among the throbbing lights of cars, or as
you look away to dodge eye-contact with
your own reflection in the carriage-glass;
or in a waiting-room a face reminds you
that the colour supplements have lied
and some have pleasure and some pay the price.

Then all the small securities you built
about your house, your desk, your calendar
are blown like straws; and momentarily,
as if a scent of ivy or the earth
had opened up a childhood door, you pause,
to take the measure of what might have been
against the kind of life you settled for.

The Ideal - James Fenton

The Ideal
by James Fenton

This is where I came from.
I passed this way.
This should not be shameful
Or hard to say.

A self is a self.
It is not a screen.
A person should respect
What he has been.

This is my past
Which I shall not discard.
This is the ideal.
This is hard.