A few days ago I picked up a copy of Roger Housden’s anthology Risking Everything: 110 Poems of Love and Revelation.
Today I opened it at a random page, and suddenly felt compelled to start reading the poem out loud. It was D. H. Lawrence’s Deeper Than Love, and I found myself reading it slowly, lingering over the words, tasting them, feeling their weight on my tongue.
Love, like the flowers, is life, growing.
But underneath are the deep rocks, the living rock that lives alone
and deeper still the unknown fire, unknown and heavy, heavy and alone.
The noise of the air conditioner in the kitchen drowned my speech (it’s a miserable night, dew point around 75, no central air) which was good: I was only reading for myself. I finished the Lawrence, and opened again at random: Billy Collins’ This Much I Do Remember. Not a poem to read out loud, this one, but one to close your eyes and see what the poet had seen:
that I could feel it being painted within me
brushed on the wall of my skull
And of course all of Housden’s favourites are here, like old familiar friends: Rumi, Bly, and above all Mary Oliver. What a glorious collection.