Ordinary Moments--That Aren't

Each of us functions within a zone of comfort and familiarity that eventually turns even the most unusual activity into the ordinary. Two of my sons are drummers; while they never take their instrument for granted, the mystique is long gone because they know their drums intimately. But let someone enter our home who is not a percussionist and they are instantly and inevitably drawn toward the drum set just as the children in this poem are drawn to the knife-grinder's sparks. Walt Whitman often creates a mystique about the mundane, turning the ordinary into something special through his "writer's microscope."

2010 Poetry Parade: Day 19
Sparkles from the Wheel

by

Walt Whitman

Where the city's ceaseless crowd moves on, the live-long day,
Withdrawn, I join a group of children watching--I pause aside with them.

By the curb, toward the edge of the flagging,
A knife-grinder works at his wheel, sharpening a great knife;
Bending over, he carefully holds it to the stone--by foot and knee,
With measur'd tread, he turns rapidly--As he presses with light but firm hand,
Forth issue, then, in copious golden jets,
Sparkles from the wheel.

The scene, and all its belongings--how they seize and affect me!
The sad, sharp-chinn'd old man, with worn clothes, and broad shoulder-band of leather;
Myself, effusing and fluid--a phantom curiously floating--now here absorb'd and arrested;

The group, (an unminded point, set in a vast surrounding;)
The attentive, quiet children--the loud, proud, restive base of the streets;
The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stone--the light-press'd blade,
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,
Sparkles from the wheel.


This poem is in the public domain.

Today, a UPS Man. Tomorrow, a Spider

I am nothing if not diverse in the array of poems I showcase in my Poetry Parade. Today's selection was from Maine poet Alice Persons--an ode to her U.P.S. delivery guy that was particularly enjoyable for those of us who saw "Legally Blonde: The Musical" at the Peace Center last week! Tomorrow's poem is Walt Whitman's "The Noiseless, Patient Spider," and truly, does that not describe spiders to a tee? They're the most silent little critters there are--especially the long-legged, big daddy types. Good poetry does that: it ratchets down your focus to those miniscule, magnified details, then sums it all up in a handful of perfect words.

Coming up in the parade is a heartbreaker from Ellen Bass about marrying off your daughter, John Stanizzi's beautiful love poem "Cardinals," and a poem from a student at Harvard that put the U.S. Navy on notice. Don't miss the fun! Sign up at www.jaynejaudonferrer.com.