Our Highlighted Writer this week is Kathy Low, who somehow managed to compress all the genius and range of T S Eliot into one short poem and not just the scope of his work, but even his influences are included in this remarkable poem. But best of all, she finishes with that uplifting quote from Julian of Norwich, via Eliot. Fine work, Kathy!
If I Could Write like T S Eliot….. by Kathy Low
If I Could Write like T S Eliot…..
I’d tell you how time is timeless
and how the past and future are here right now.
`
You could read of Greek myths (sometimes in Greek!)….
gender-shifting Tiresias, seer of mundane futures,
and of the haunting Eumenides (don’t look out the window!)
`
I could entertain you with accounts of Cats,
mischievous and anarchic and
the never-to-be-seen One
whose only presence was the evidence of mayhem.
`
You would see a different story of the Nativity….
the Magi grumbling and complaining, their journey long and tedious,
missing their women and sherbet.
Perhaps too, that the shepherds had a long weary climb
back up to the pastures.
`
And oh…. I would mayhap write of lilacs and hope,
and the kindness of strangers,
and fires of renewal and beginnings.
`
I would fill the hollow men with something akin to that hope
and would I dare to write an ode to joy?
`
And this. I would set down this:
“And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well”…..
`
Kathy Low
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