{"id":3409,"date":"2021-07-15T12:50:13","date_gmt":"2021-07-15T16:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/?p=3409"},"modified":"2021-07-15T12:50:14","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T16:50:14","slug":"a-poem-for-a-thursday-138","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2021\/07\/15\/a-poem-for-a-thursday-138\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poem for a Thursday #138"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Lynn Kintziger<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Lisel Mueller was a German-American poet who lived form 1924-2020. She was born in Hamburg, Germany and she and her family had to flee the Nazis when Mueller was 15. They immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Indiana. Her work “has been praised for its attentiveness to quiet moments of domestic drama, and its ability to speak to the experiences of family and semi-rural life.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Doctor, you say there are no haloes\naround the streetlights in Paris\nand what I see is an aberration\ncaused by old age, and affliction.\nI tell you it has taken me all my life\nto arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,\nto soften and blur and finally banish\nthe edges you regret I don't see,\nto learn that the line I called the horizon\ndoes not exist and sky and water,\nso long apart, are the same state of being.\nFifty-four years before I could see\nRouen cathedral is built\nof parallel shafts of sun,\nand now you want to restore\nmy youthful errors:  fixed\nnotions of top and bottom,\nthe illusion of three-dimensional space,\nwisteria separate\nfrom the bridge it covers.\nWhat can I say to convince you \nthe Houses of Parliament dissolve\nnight after night to become\nthe fluid dream of the Thames?\nI will not return to a universe \nof objects that don't know each other,\nas if islands were not the lost children\nof one great continent. The world\nis flux, and light becomes what it touches,\nbecomes water, lilies on water,\nabove and below water,\nbecomes lilac and mauve and yellow\nand white and cerulean lamps,\nsmall fists passing sunlight\nso quickly to one another \nthat it would take long, streaming hair \ninside my brush to catch it.\nTo paint the speed of light!\nOur weighted shapes, these verticals,\nburn to mix with air\nand change our bones, skin, clothes\nto gases. Doctor,\nif only you could see\nhow heaven pulls earth into its arms\nand how infinitely the heart expands\nto claim this world, blue vapor without end. \n\nMonet Refuses the Operation\nLisel Mueller<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lisel Mueller was a German-American poet who lived form 1924-2020. She was born in Hamburg, Germany and she and her family had to flee the Nazis when Mueller was 15. They immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Indiana. Her work “has been praised for its attentiveness to quiet moments of domestic drama, and its ability to speak to the experiences of family and semi-rural life.” Doctor, you say there are no haloes around the streetlights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age, and affliction. I tell you it has taken me all my life to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels, to soften and blur and finally banish the edges you regret I don’t see, to learn that the line I called the horizon does not exist and sky and water, so long apart, are the same state of being. Fifty-four years before I could see Rouen cathedral is built of parallel shafts of sun, and now you want to restore my youthful errors: fixed notions of top and bottom, the illusion of three-dimensional space, wisteria separate from the bridge it covers. What can I say to convince you the Houses of Parliament dissolve night after night to become the fluid dream of the Thames? I will not return to a universe of objects that don’t know each other, as if islands were not the lost children of one great continent. The world is flux, and light becomes what it touches, becomes water, lilies on water, above and below water, becomes lilac and mauve and yellow and white and cerulean lamps, small fists passing sunlight so quickly to one another that it would take long, streaming hair inside my brush to catch it. To paint the speed of light! Our weighted shapes, these verticals, burn to mix with air and change our bones, skin, clothes to gases. Doctor, if only you could see how heaven pulls earth into its arms and how infinitely the heart expands to claim this world, blue vapor without end. Monet Refuses the Operation Lisel Mueller<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poem-for-a-thursday"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3411,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3409\/revisions\/3411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}