I know I've said this before: Patricia MacLachlan is one of my favourite authors. You may be familiar with her book Sarah, Plain and Tall, for which she won the Newbery Medal. It was produced as a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie in 1991, starring Glenn Close and Christopher Walken.
The movie is wonderful. The book is brilliant.
In an interview, MacLachlan once said that she wanted to create an intense emotional experience for the reader using very few words. It's because she's a genius at saying so much with so little that I love her work.
All the Places to Love (above) is the most beautiful children's book I've come across. Her words are spare, but enough to settle into your heart.
When I was older, Papa and I plowed the fields.
Where else is soil so sweet? he said.
Once Papa and I lay down in the field, holding hands,
And the birds surrounded us:
Raucous black grackles, redwings,
Crows in the dirt that swaggered like pirates.
When we left, Papa put a handful of dirt in his pocket.
I did too.
It reads like poetry. And I think that's why, years ago, I decided to take poetry classes. I wanted to learn to be less wordy, to write tight, to make words sizzle. With poetry, every word speaks. And isn't that what makes poetry profound?
Please allow me to share some snippets from poems I've recently savoured. I dare you not to be affected or astounded by at least one phrase.
No, no, there is no going back
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
...
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.
- Wendell Berry [1993-I]
*****
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
- Marge Piercy [To be of use]
*****
This day is all that is
good and fair.
It is too dear
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on yesterdays.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson [From a Letter to His Daughter]
*****
Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?
- Edna St. Vincent Millay [Grown Up]
*****
The birds have vanished down the sky
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.
- Li Po [Zazen on Ching-t'ing Mountain]
*****
I'm so thankful for authors and poets who worked hard on their craft, with purpose and dedication, so that someday this reader would be touched and inspired by their words. I can only hope to do the same.
~~~~~
Feature photo by Joy Bailey
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