POET'S CORNER by Jeff Hartzer
#003: August 2004

CHA...CHA...CHANGES !

In the June Issue of SVI, we dove into the world of the poet. In July, we began to smell the poetry baking in the oven. This month, it’s BACK to SCHOOL time with new friends, new clothes, and a shedding of the old, as we prepare to greet the Fall Season. Exciting yes, but we FEAR change!

Poets, farmers, and Wal*Mart shoppers seem to be the first to notice ‘seasonal changes’. Our need to spend money on ‘new things’, makes the seasons whirl by at a fast pace. But you can’t have too many ‘new’ things without letting go the ‘old’. Days have been growing shorter since June 21st. All things change, yet all remains the same. Ironic? Percy Bysshe Shelley summed it all up in one word, ‘Mutability’. Shelley says the only constant is change. Here’s a look at Shelley’s poem :

Mutability
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

We are the clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!--yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost forever:
Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.
We rest.--A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise.--One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond foe, or cast our cares away:
It is the same!--For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.

Teachers love to have their students write about ‘what I did last summer’...Silly as it may seem, this is a good time of the year to ‘review’ in written words our accomplishments as well as what we will bring to our tables for Harvest Season. Set down a list of ‘what you’ve been up to’ since Spring. ‘Back to school’ means ‘homework’ and longer nights. We need to take a time out for a review of our lives.

Take time now to write yourself a note. What is constant in your own life? What is changing? We fear change; yet, there is nothing constant in our lives except change. Fight change by capturing a precious moment or two in a poem. Go for the gold as you turn your words and hearts toward this new season. Dance your words across blank pages like so many brilliantly colored leaves just waiting to fall.

Jeff Hartzer
copyright 2004