Posts
Poets,
The Office Building
Helen Hoyt
We
kissed there in the stone entrance,
In the great cool stone mouth of the building,
Before it took you.
We kissed under the granite arches.
And then you turned and were gone
And high about and above were the hard towered
walls,
The terrible weights of stone, relentless,
But for the moment they had been kind to us,
Folding us with arms
While we kissed.
The Office Building appeared in The Liberator, issue 10 (1918).
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Response to Helen Hoyt's The Office Building
I was five when you died. 1972
was a time of poets, like us, but still
unknown to little me.
Twin towers of steel and concrete
rose higher and higher above city streets.
We didn’t know terrible weights of stone would
crumble so,
falling relentless through our folded arms.
There were moments they had been kind to us
remembered these decades now
beyond you, beyond me.
(c) Linda Mitchell
Join us for storytime on his padlet.
Thank you, Miss Rumphius Effect for hosting this week's Poetry Friday round-up.
I like how you researched the poet, found when she passed and related it all to the Twin Towers. What a memory for us all. I still remember the horror of disbelief watching the tv that day.
ReplyDeleteYour ending line is powerful and haunting.
And the poem with Hamish is brilliant. I think you have gold in the Oadlet.
Your response to that discovered poem is loving and just right, Linda. I know you must have been surprised that Helen Hoyt wrote it so long ago. It gives me shivers how it seems to portend what we all know now happened on 9/11. I spent that day with my middle-grade students and many of their parents came to join us. I will not forget "beyond you beyond me". And, '14 Cows for America' is a treasured book.
ReplyDeleteLinda, I always love the way you research your pieces and make connections. In this case, it is about 911 but you bring a poem to us from a different era that has inklings of what is to come. What a great find. Your response to the Hoyt poem is a wonderful connection using the words folded arms. I also love what you and Hamish brought to us this week-another bit of research through a picture book.
ReplyDeleteI have been meaning to click across and catch up with Hamish each time I blog - and then I compose/post my comment and forget! So I did that first today. Wire Ox was delightful. And Counsel to the Donner and Reed party was so well done! I am very intrigued by 14 Cows. It sounds like a gift of great significance. (Loved all your Golden Shovels.)
ReplyDeleteAnd this poem is another crafted gem. Your reuse of phrases is perfect.
I love the connections you make here, Linda. Hoyt's poem is so haunting, know what we know and your response, the last line is so powerful. Beyond you. Beyond me.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm crying. I, too, thought of the twin towers when I opened the daily poem, but your response...and your conversation with Hamish via the quote...simply beautiful.
ReplyDeleteLinda both of your poems are beautiful. I love that they are both in dialogue with other poems. Twenty years on and we're all still grappling with that day. Thank you for sharing these.
ReplyDeleteLinda, the poem you shared and your response with the photo are breathtaking. Such a beautiful tribute on this inauspicious anniversary. Thank you for sharing. And Hamish's poem is another beauty. I didn't know the story of the 14 cattle. I've just been on the book website reading about where the cows are now.
ReplyDeleteSo moved by both your poems, and surprised, as you were, that Helen's poem was written so long ago. Thanks for this perfect and powerful remembrance of that terrible day. We will never forget.
ReplyDeleteThe metaphorical elements of Helen Hoyt's poem are strong and actually form a bridge for we who have experienced the tragedy of 9/11.
ReplyDeleteYou have used the earlier poem to springboard seamlessly into your response Linda. Your words hold much for readers to ponder.
So many emotions still all these years later. Hoyt's poem and your response brought tears to my eyes. "Beyond you, beyond me." So lovely.
ReplyDeleteWhat a find, what a perfect poem. And your “falling relentless through our folded arms”—so heavily beyond.
ReplyDeleteThis post is what I love about knowing you. You take a poem, search for more, finding it, respond in kind.
ReplyDeleteSo beautiful. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteBoth of your poems are moving responses–thanks for having us remember Linda, and introducing me to Helen Hoyt. I especially like how you so seamlessly incorporated her lines into yours with "moments they had been kind to us."
ReplyDeleteLinda, this is so moving — both Hoyt's poem, which gave me goosebumps, and your beautiful responses. Thank you.
ReplyDelete