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By Heart: “Peace” by Sara Teasdale + New Kenyon “Let Evening Come” Challenge

By Megan Willome 17 Comments

Sara Teasdale
I first discovered Sara Teasdale in an anthology titled All the Silver Pennies. And although Teasdale is one of Tweetspeak’s Take Your Poet to Work and School all-stars, I hadn’t spent much time with her. And then “Peace” popped up at Every Day Poems in early September.

Peace

Peace flows into me
As the tide to the pool by the shore;
It is mine forevermore,
It will not ebb like the sea.

I am the pool of blue
That worships the vivid sky;
My hopes were heaven-high,
They are all fulfilled in you.

I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies,
You are my deepening skies;
Give me your stars to hold.

Only twelve lines, the poem rhymes in an abba, cddc, effe pattern. The rhythm itself ebbs and flows, just like the sea it describes. It seemed simple enough to learn by heart, even while on vacation. So Teasdale came west with me, her poem about the sea keeping me company in the mountains.

I always start by memorizing the last line, to know where I’m going. That meant the first line I learned was “Give me your stars to hold.” Which stars? The stars in Fort Davis, Texas, where the McDonald Observatory is located and where we spent our first night of vacation. The stars at night are indeed big and bright when you’re at 5,000 feet above sea level in a region known to be “hostile to trees,” according to the pamphlet I found at the cabin where we stayed.

From there, it was inevitable I would work my way through the poem backward. Next we traveled to Alamogordo, New Mexico, where my cousin took us to White Sands National Monument for a sunset picnic. What did it look like? It looked like this:

I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies
You are my deepening skies

Driving through New Mexico over the next few days, often down deserted highways, we stared at skies so large they curved like waves — the same skies that inspired artist Georgia O’Keeffe, whose museum we visited and whose landscapes we traversed.

My hopes were heaven-high
They are all fulfilled in you

From there we traveled to my happy place, Colorado. We started in Creede, my mom’s happy place, which I wrote about in The Joy of Poetry. Each morning as I walked — temps in the 30s, elevation almost 9,000 feet — every aspen and cottonwood golden, I finally found water-filled peace, at the Rio Grande. Unlike the sea, it does not ebb. It only flows.

Peace flows into me
As the tide to the pool by the shore.
It is mine forevermore,
It will not ebb like the sea.

After so many miles traveled I’d still found no pool to reflect the blue sky. For that we had to push on to Estes Park, where autumn yielded to a foot of snow. But I knew where to find a pool of blue: Lake Estes. While we walked the 3.75-mile trail in the center of town, it snowed and snowed and snowed. Which, for this Texas gal, inspired something like worship.

I am the pool of blue
That worships the vivid sky

This was no ordinary vacation. It was our first time to revisit some beloved places after much loss. Just in case the experience didn’t feel peaceful, I thought it prudent to bring “Peace” along, tucking it into my jacket pocket so I would never be without it.

As I practiced the lines I moved my body with the rhyme scheme: in-out-out-in, out-in-in-out, in-out-out-in. It took actual flow to tuck peace in my heart, and with it, my own passel of stars to hold forevermore.

Your Turn

Did you memorize “Peace” this month? Join our By Heart community and share your audio or video using the hashtags #ByHeart and #MemoriesWithFriends and tagging us @tspoetry. We also welcome photos of your handwritten copy of the poem.

By Heart for December

For the next By Heart gathering, December 20, we’ll memorize Jane Kenyon’s “Let Evening Come,” which is especially comforting if you find the holiday season to be heavy.

Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

Photo by duncan johnston, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Megan Willome, author of The Joy of Poetry.

Browse more By Heart

MW-Joy of Poetry Front cover 367 x 265

“Megan Willome’s The Joy of Poetry is not a long book, but it took me longer to read than I expected, because I kept stopping to savor poems and passages, to make note of books mentioned, and to compare Willome’s journey into poetry to my own. The book is many things. An unpretentious, funny, and poignant memoir. A defense of poetry, a response to literature that has touched her life, and a manual on how to write poetry. It’s also the story of a daughter who loses her mother to cancer. The author links these things into a narrative much like that of a novel. I loved this book. As soon as I finished, I began reading it again.”

—David Lee Garrison, author of Playing Bach in the D. C. Metro

Buy The Joy of Poetry Now

  • Author
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Megan Willome
Megan Willome
Megan Willome is a writer, editor, and author of The Joy of Poetry: How to Keep, Save & Make Your Life With Poems and Rainbow Crow: poems in and out of form. Her day is incomplete without poetry, tea, and a walk in the dark.
Megan Willome
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Filed Under: Blog, By Heart, Sara Teasdale

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About Megan Willome

Megan Willome is a writer, editor, and author of The Joy of Poetry: How to Keep, Save & Make Your Life With Poems and Rainbow Crow: poems in and out of form. Her day is incomplete without poetry, tea, and a walk in the dark.

Comments

  1. L.L. Barkat says

    November 30, 2018 at 9:48 am

    Vacation poems. A new thing, perhaps? 🙂

    I love what you did with “Peace,” and what “Peace” did while you were away. And this whole post is simply inspiring. Thank you.

    I memorized, happily, and now “Peace” is part of the poetry book I’m creating in my mind. 🙂

    https://soundcloud.com/l-l-barkat/peace-by-sara-teasdale

    Reply
    • Megan Willome says

      November 30, 2018 at 10:16 am

      Lovely!

      Well, it became a vacation poem because we were going to be gone for two weeks, and I wasn’t sure I could memorize a poem in the two remaining weeks of the month. But now I think I’ll always bring a poem to memorize with me when I travel. Even if I don’t finish learning it by heart, I can at least start.

      Reply
  2. Laura Brown says

    November 30, 2018 at 11:41 am

    I love the ebb and flow of this poem — of the water, of the day and night, inward and outward, of an almost tidal gaze from water to sky — and also the “forevermore” permanence and stillness in it. This would be a good one to say to oneself when one has lost the thread of peace. You were smart to pack it, as potentially life-saving as bottled water, a Swiss Army knife, a granola bar, a hat or anything else we’re told to pack when hiking in high country.

    I haven’t gotten it memorized yet, but your backwards approach helps, to know and aim towards that last line. It’s peaceful this morning to hear you read it.

    And it delights me that you were so overjoyed by snowfall.

    Reply
    • Megan Willome says

      November 30, 2018 at 5:12 pm

      Ah, the magic of snow when you don’t have any. 🙂

      Laura, I like the idea of this poem as potentially life-saving. I have already recited it to myself in an unpeaceful moment.

      Reply
  3. Matthew Kreider says

    November 30, 2018 at 7:32 pm

    The things like this—why I love Tweetspeak Poetry so much 🙂

    Reply
    • Megan Willome says

      December 1, 2018 at 9:23 am

      Thanks, Matthew! We’re here to *not* ruin your day.

      Reply
  4. Laura Brown says

    December 1, 2018 at 1:18 pm

    Memorized.

    https://soundcloud.com/laura-brown-948040045/peace-by-sara-teasdale-for-tweetspeak-poetrys-by-heart-challenge

    Reply
    • L.L. Barkat says

      December 1, 2018 at 5:50 pm

      How marvelous that you created a tune, Laura! 🙂

      (Donna, did you see this? 🙂 )

      Reply
      • Laura Brown says

        December 1, 2018 at 11:46 pm

        Thank you. I was working on memorizing the poem but couldn’t get a few lines right. This morning when I was folding laundry, the first line of the tune came, and I played with it, the melody only, not even thinking about words. Then I thought, might it fit the peace poem? And it more or less did. 🙂

        Reply
        • Megan Willome says

          December 2, 2018 at 2:07 pm

          Much, much more, Laura. Thank you for blessing us with your song.

          Reply
  5. Sandra Heska King says

    December 4, 2018 at 11:22 am

    I kind of have a heart for voices only, so I can just close my eyes and listen. But here is my video.

    I love how you took this poem with you on vacation and connected it to where you were, made it personal. And starting from the end is a novel method to know where you are going.

    And Laura! More singing, please.

    https://youtu.be/2N204NRKPJI

    Reply
    • Megan Willome says

      December 4, 2018 at 12:43 pm

      Sandy, thank you for *your* voice on your video. Did you notice you were wearing the “pool of blue”?

      Reply
  6. Sharmen Oswald says

    August 9, 2023 at 9:05 am

    Such a vivid reminder of the arduous journey to find peace but also how much it is worth it once you are there. As a response to “Let Evening Come” at the time of its original post, I wrote “Be Still”. Now that I have read “Peace” I realize how “Be Still” is also an inspiration derived from this poem. For me evening signals a time to wind down, to shake off the cares of the day and clothe yourself in peace. Thank you for this reminder to intentionally seek peace. Here’s my “Be Still”, which still speaks to my heart and settles me.

    Be Still
    As the sun slips away to just a sliver
    And the earth is winding down,
    I retreat to the forest, a giver
    Of peace and sound.

    I find my spot upon the earth
    And sit in quiet repose.
    I listen to the birds’ song of mirth,
    Different from the sun’s show.

    Their songs at eventide
    Are calling to the night,
    A different chime,
    Bringing peaceful delight.

    I hear birds I’ve never heard,
    A different song they sing
    One of hope deferred,
    Peace to me they bring.

    I walk away my soul richer
    For being in the presence
    Of God’s creation, a picture.
    Be still, the night of evanescence.

    Reply
    • Megan Willome says

      August 9, 2023 at 2:36 pm

      Sharmen, this feels like a song. A hymn, even.

      May you have a peaceful, evanescent evening.

      Reply
      • Sharmen Oswald says

        August 9, 2023 at 3:30 pm

        Thank you. You as well!

        Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Tweetspeak Poetry: By Heart: “Peace” by Sara Teasdale says:
    February 20, 2019 at 9:16 am

    […] By Heart: “Peace” by Sara Teasdale + New Kenyon “Let Evening Come” Challenge […]

    Reply
  2. The Hero’s Poetry Journey: Return with Elixir — Megan Willome says:
    April 28, 2023 at 6:05 am

    […] “Peace,” by Sara Teasdale […]

    Reply

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