The Poem that Broke Up a Relationship

I knew I was finished with the relationship when the individual for whom I had moved 450 miles away to be with, the one with Narcissistic Personality Disorder who periodically threatened suicide, gave me a book of poetry with this particular item marked for me. He didn’t have to tell me the poem wasn’t about dogs at all, but about co-dependence.

Biscuit by Jane Kenyon

The dog has cleaned his bowl and his reward is a biscuit, which I put in his mouth like a priest offering the host.

I can’t bear that trusting face! He asks for bread, expects bread, and I in my power might have given him a stone.

from Otherwise: New & Selected Poems

© 1996 by the Estate of Jane Kenyon

A Voluntary Act

We’re in a freefall into the future. We don’t know where we’re going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you’re going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. [A] shift of perspective, [a] joyful participation in the sorrows, and everything changes.

Joseph Campbell

Welcome to Poetry Sundays

Each Sunday I’m going to post a poem I like. Some will be short, some will be long. Some will be old favorites, some will be pieces I just stumbled over accidentally. Some will have famous authors’ names attached, some will be by relative unknowns. A few may have some commentary, if I can’t help myself (mostly of the why this is important to me variety), but pretty much it will be just the poem, speaking for itself.

Today’s arrived in my email, courtesy of Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac.

Respite by Jane Hirshfield

Day after quiet day passes. I speak to no one besides the dog. To her, I murmur much I would not otherwise say.

We make plans then break them on a moment’s whim. She agrees; though sometimes bringing to my attention a small blue ball.

Passing the fig tree I see it is suddenly huge with green fruit, which may ripen or not.

Near the gate, I stop to watch the sugar ants climb the top bar and cross at the latch, as they have now in summer for years.

In this way I study my life. It is, I think today, like a dusty glass vase.

A little water, a few flowers would be good, I think; but do nothing. Love is far away. Incomprehensible sunlight falls on my hand.

From The Lives of the Heart: Poems

. © 1997 by Harper Perennial.