Yesterday was the poet, Elizabeth Bishop’s birthday and while I wanted to write something about it, I simply didn’t have time. Still, I was reading an article about how amusing her poems are and was astounded at the writer’s take on what Bishop’s poems say.
Shaya One says:
“The writings of Elizabeth Bishop are more humorous than anything else. Not a single one of her poems reflect poetry, love, sadness, anger or any emotion. Here’s a breakdown of each and every one of her pieces. You’ll find yourself much amused and insulted, maybe something she was aiming for, but they don’t follow the lines of poetry. There is no emotion that really takes you away other than laughter if that counts. You’ll be amused anyway. ….” (continued here)
Perhaps we sometimes get out of poetry what is in our own hearts and souls and miss what the poet really meant, unless of course, we have a similar mindset ourselves. In any event, I did not get the same thing from Miracle at Breakfast as Shaya at all.
Actually, the beginning of the poem reminded me of Jesus feeding the hungry.
A Miracle for Breakfast
At six o’clock we were waiting for coffee,
waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb
that was going to be served from a certain balcony
–like kings of old, or like a miracle.
It was still dark. One foot of the sun
steadied itself on a long ripple in the river.
The first ferry of the day had just crossed the river.
It was so cold we hoped that the coffee
would be very hot, seeing that the sun
was not going to warm us; and that the crumb
would be a loaf each, buttered, by a miracle.
At seven a man stepped out on the balcony.
He stood for a minute alone on the balcony
looking over our heads toward the river.
A servant handed him the makings of a miracle,
consisting of one lone cup of coffee
and one roll, which he proceeded to crumb,
his head, so to speak, in the clouds–along with the sun.
Was the man crazy? What under the sun
was he trying to do, up there on his balcony!
Each man received one rather hard crumb,
which some flicked scornfully into the river,
and, in a cup, one drop of the coffee.
Some of us stood around, waiting for the miracle.
I can tell what I saw next; it was not a miracle.
A beautiful villa stood in the sun
and from its doors came the smell of hot coffee.
In front, a baroque white plaster balcony
added by birds, who nest along the river,
–I saw it with one eye close to the crumb–
and galleries and marble chambers. My crumb
my mansion, made for me by a miracle,
through ages, by insects, birds, and the river
working the stone. Every day, in the sun,
at breakfast time I sit on my balcony
with my feet up, and drink gallons of coffee.
We licked up the crumb and swallowed the coffee.
A window across the river caught the sun
as if the miracle were working, on the wrong balcony.
I see emotions in this poem. I see hungry people hoping for a meal and getting a crumb, experiencing different emotions. There is hope, contempt, disappointment and disbelief in this poem and all expressed within a rather difficult form of poetry, the sestina.
I don’t see anything really amusing in it, do you?
