My Little Poem: forget about hope

"Ode 1.11" by Horace

Hello, Poetry Friend

Confession: I collect poems about hope. Which includes poems that seem to belittle hope or eschew it or simply cast it aside. I printed Burton Raffel’s translation of Horace’s “Ode 1.11” — aka the carpe diem poem — four years ago because of this line:

I haven’t forgotten. But the word “forget” can mean so many things. It can mean disregard. It can mean stop paying such close attention. It can mean let go — don’t grasp so tightly you squeeze the life out of hope. For me, depending on the day, I have forgotten hope in all of these ways.

Ode 1.11  Leucon, no one’s allowed to know his fate, Not you, not me: don’t ask, don’t hunt for answers In tea leaves or palms. Be patient with whatever comes. This could be our last winter, it could be many More, pounding the Tuscan Sea on these rocks: Do what you must, be wise, cut your vines And forget about hope. Time goes running, even As we talk. Take the present, the future’s no one’s affair.   –Horace, translated by Burton Raffel

Raffel rendered the phrase carpe diem as “Take the present.” The word “take” is a little less grabby than the word we usually use with diem: “seize,” as in “seize the day.” Whether we clutch the day or apprehend it or simply take it as it comes, the day itself comes, and then it goes.

Take it. Take this day. Take hope too, even as it ebbs and flows.

Wendell Berry has a poem titled “III” which opens with similarly unhopeful thoughts about hope:

Yes, though hope is our duty,

let us live a while without it

to show ourselves we can.

–Wendell Berry

And Naomi Shihab Nye has an untitled poem printed in the May 2015 edition of Texas Monthly, “Big Bend for Everyone,” that also wrestles with hope:

Sheer spaciousness, before hope

bent backward too many times,

breaking news, breaking us.

–Naomi Shihab Nye

These less than hope-full poems do not leave me feeling hopeless. They help me exhale. They make me want to take a walk while hope runs ahead, along the seashore. I will keep walking in her direction.

This year is a Jubilee Year in the Catholic church, and the theme is Pilgrims of Hope. It seems this capital-H word is not yet done having its way with me. Even on this drippy, foggy birthday morning, I look up into the bare branches of the trees outside, where the darkling thrush, ever aware, still flings his soul.

Happy poeming!

Megan