A Gray Haze Over the Rice Fields by Jayanta Mahapatra

Jayanta Mahapatra was born on October 22, 1928 in Cuttack, India. He earned a Master's degree in physics and started teaching at different colleges in 1949. Mahapatra started writing poetry at age 38. When he wrote the Relationship, he won the Sahitya Akademi award in 1981 and was the first Indian English poet to receive the award.

A gray haze over the rice fields.
The black cow grazing with her newborn calf—
long-legged, unsteady—
or trucks going past the high road;
such things only claim
that I am looking out in search of memory,
not death. Those little kisses on my cheeks
my long-dead grandmother gave me, or
the soft dampness of my tears when
my mother didn’t notice me
from beyond the closed door of her youth.

Today the dangling thread stops halfway down,
where my hands cannot touch it.
It’s not that I wait for judgment.
But at times I see a shadow
move slowly over these, a shadow freed
from the past and from the future,
that contains the footsteps of that childhood
so light I can only think of squirrels
slipping in and out of the mango trees.

When I first saw the title of this poem, I thought it would be about a man growing rice in a hazy climate. Actually, the poem is more about a man's growth from a troubled past as a child. Also, I think the speaker of the poem is the author considering his background.

"A gray haze over the rice fields. The black cow grazing with her newborn calf— long-legged, unsteady—" I believe this line describes the speaker's unsteady relationship at home. The stanza goes on to describe the source of pain as "Those little kisses on my cheeks my long-dead grandmother gave me, or the soft dampness of my tears when my mother didn't notice me..." From the sounds of it, the speaker lived with his grandmother and mother, but once the grandmother died, the speaker did not receive any affection or acknowledgement at home.

The speaker tries to reach something whether it be affection, recognition, etc, but he struggles to reach it. This idea is described by "Today the dangling thread stops halfway down, where my hands cannot touch it." Luckily, the speaker is able to learn and grow from the past by the lines "But at times I see a shadow move slowly over these, a shadow freed from the past and from the future, that contains the footsteps of that childhood." This line describes the idea that if the speaker had not been able to grow or move on from his past, he would have been stuck in a future that was shaped from what happened during his childhood. The speaker would have gone by unnoticed as he experienced life like "squirrels slipping in and out of the mango trees." During his childhood, the speaker slipped by unnoticed, but the future will be different. If the author was the speaker, I am impressed by the accomplishments he has made considering his childhood struggles.

Lost Brother by Stanley Moss

Stanley Moss was born June 21, 1925 in Woodhaven, New York. Moss attended Trinity College and Yale University. He founded the Sheep Meadow Press in 1977. Moss taught English in Barcelona and Rome; he is a private art dealer who specializes in Spanish and Italian Old Masters.

Lost Brother

I knew that tree was my lost brother
when I heard he was cut down
at four thousand eight hundred sixty-two years;
I know we had the same mother.
His death pained me. I made up a story.
I realized, when I saw his photograph,
he was an evergreen, a bristlecone like me,
who had lived from an early age
with a certain amount of dieback,
at impossible locations, at elevations
over ten thousand feet in extreme weather.
His company: other conifers,
the rosy finch, the rock wren, the raven and clouds,
blue and silver insects that fed mostly off each other.
Some years bighorn sheep visited in summer—
he was entertained by red bats, black-tailed jackrabbits,
horned lizards, the creatures old and young he sheltered.
Beside him in the shade, pink mountain pennyroyal—
to his south, white angelica.
I am prepared to live as long as he did
(it would please our mother),
live with clouds and those I love
suffering with God.
Sooner or later, some bag of wind will cut me down.

—Stanley Moss
The overall impression I received from this poem was that everyone (even trees) has a role model to look up to. A person could focus his or her whole life trying to live up to the memory and expectations of another. Although people should try to be their own person because no two people are alike. I feel the idea of striving to be someone else is an internal struggle that all people deal with at one point in their lives. The ones who overcome the struggle and become their own person have sturdier roots (less likely to be knocked down by the wind).

There are two lines in the poem they made a deep impression on me personally. "His death pained me. I made up a story." Death is a painful topic that is avoided at dinner time conversations; people deal with death in many different ways. In my life, I have death with the death of my father and brother, but this poem relates more to my brother. At the age of 2, I traveled to the hospital with my father because my mom was in labor with my first sibling. Since she had the flu, the birth was hard and the baby did not survive. I was young and never not got to know my brother, but that does not mean his death was any less painful than my father's six years later. As a family, we planted a tree in the backyard in his memory. Sometimes I dream what it would be like if Nikodemus was still alive? Would his nickname be Nick, would he share a room with my other brother, would he like to swim as much as I do, would he share my passion for books, or would he be the sibling I would always go to in times of happiness and trouble? I will never know. But, some nights I lay in my room imagining what he would look and act like. "I make up a story." Lucky for me, my family was blessed with three more children, so I have two sisters (Kadia and Abbey) and a brother (Cleveland) that I can play with, annoy, or talk to. I am happy for the life I have, but every now and then I wonder how it could be different.

Evening Concert, Saint-Chapelle by John Updike

Over the past few weeks, I have practiced pieces on my oboe to try to earn scholarships and a place in the band at different colleges. I like music; I play because I love to play and have fun (I cannot see myself growing up to be a famous musician though). I picked the Evening Concert, Saint-Chapelle by John Updike because the poem seemed centered around music like my life as been while I prepare my audition pieces.

Before I start, John Updike was born March 18, 1932 in Pennsylvania. Updike died on January 27, 2007 at the age of 76 from lung cancer. He received two Pulitzer Prizes for fiction.

The celebrated windows flamed with light
directly pouring north across the Seine;
we rustled into place.  Then violins
vaunting Vivaldi's strident strength, then Brahms,
seemed to suck with their passionate sweetness,
bit by bit, the vigor from the red,
the blazing blue, so that the listening eye
saw suddenly the thick black lines, in shapes
of shield and cross and strut and brace, that held
the holy glowing fantasy together.
The music surged; the glow became a milk,
a whisper to the eye, a glimmer ebbed
until our beating hearts, our violins
were cased in thin but solid sheets of lead.

I loved the imagery in this poem. I was able to see the church and windows in my mind; sometimes, I could hear a violin playing in the background. I loved the lines "the celebrated windows flamed with light," "the music surged," and "so that the listening eye say suddenly the thick black lines, in shapes of shield and cross and strut and brace, that held the holy glowing fantasy together." When I read the line "so that the listening eye," I laughed because I imagined an eye with ears since I have never heard the senses of sight and hearing combined in such a way. Plus, when the music was described as a "holy glowing fantasy," I thought to the few times when I played a piece of music that moved me deeply in heart and sole. Sometimes the songs I sing (out of tune most of the time!!!) and play (in tune), bring tears to my eyes, and I would consider them a "holy glowing fantasy." After reading the poem, I wanted to see what Saint-Chapelle actually looked like and how it compared to the image in my head.

I found the pictures and information at http://www.paris-architecture.info/PA-015.htm. La Sainte-Chappele means "The Holy Chapel" in French. The church is found on the Ile de la Cité in Paris, France. (I have never been out of the country, but I really would like to travel to France to see the Sainte-Chapelle because the church is beautiful!) The church became a Historical National Monument in 1862. There is an upper and lower chapel. The upper chapel is home to statues of the twelve apostles and religious relics. Plus, this chapel displays the Gothic architecture of the time. On the other hand, the lower chapel has a vaulted ceiling that was painted to remember the "star-filled heavens." Also, this chapel is dedicated to the Virgin Mary (statue in the center) and has twelve medallions that represent the twelve apostles. Finally, the most interesting piece─ the stained glass. All of the stained glass covers around 600 square meters or 6456 square feet. (That is a lot of stained glass!) Surprisingly, the glass tells the biblical story from creation to the redemption through Christ, and reads like a book (left to right and top to bottom).


I really found this poem interesting and learned new things. I am glad I decided to research the Sainte-Chapelle. The place seems so interesting, I would like to visit the church someday.