Poetry Page

[fairanna]

Welcome to our Poetry Page.
FairAnna and Barbara will alternate creating a focus for us - The poetry page is a haven for those of us who listen to words that open our hearts, and imagination, and allow our feelings be known about the poems we share - We are looking forward to continuing this tradition.

Please, joins us this month as Fairanna helps us look closer at the work of: THOMAS HARDY

Born 1840 the son of a stonemason in Dorsetshire, England he left fiction writing for poetry, and published eight collections, including Wessex Poems (1898) and Satires of Circumstance (1912). Thomas Hardy died in 1928.

A few links about Hardy and his poems.

Thomas Hardy

Poems of Thomas Hardy

Thomas and Emma

Thomas Hardy and His Wessex

Discussion Leaders: BarbStAubrey & Fairanna

Joan they are spectacular   I finally viewed about 50 but accidently clicked on a wrong groups of two young women .. I came before two piece bathing suits and now WOW there is more skin then I like to see...gee...thanks for the poppies they are really lovely  can you press one in a book and mail to me ??

[JoanK]

I'm sure it's illegal to pick them in the park where I was. If I find a pickable one, I will, but I don't know if they keep that gorgeous color.

[MarjV]

A couple asides.

I ordered poppy seeds from seedman.com - they have great pics ther of their offerings.

And this poem was from Panhala today - just sort of blew my mind away.

Gift

[JoanK]

Marg: that was lovely!

[bellemere]

Did anyone think that "I look into my glass" ends with a regret that age has not taken away his sexual desires, but left them to torment him in his old age when he can no longer have a sexual relationship? Read the last lines again.  Hardy was frank about sex in his novels and it was one of the reasons they were controversial; his publishers were always trying to tone them down. So he turned to poetry.  But he was the same man.
The natural waning of sexual desire seems much harder for a man than a woman.  He married again after Emma died, a younger woman. He lived only a few years after that, but perhaps they were happy years for him.  What do you think?

[MarjV]

A significant observation, bellemere.   

I was only thinking of it as a lament on general aging from a person with no other outlooks than image of self.

[Babi]

MARJ, "Gift" left me pondering.  My reaction was, how can I handle the questions of others when I can't find answers to my own? A beautiful and thought-provoking poem.

BELLEMARIE, Oh, yes, I saw the same thing in those lines.  I suspect Hardy expressed for us a feeling that is more common than we realize. I remember a sad story of an elderly man who broke down and wept on the first anniversary of his wife's death, because in that entire year no one had so much as placed an arm around him and hugged him.  We wither away, don't we, if there is no human contact at all.

[bellemere]

From somewhere I remember:
Stay near me! Speak my name!
Spirit, perishable as bone
In no such winter can survive alone.

[fairanna]

being alone at any age is terrible but at an advanced age  is the pits ...which is one reason people who have lost loved ones don't always do well. I am not sure Hardy remarried to advance his carnal needs but to just find someone to share his life with and sometimes I think younger women are attracted not so much by how masculine men are but by the same need to share a life...even if for a little while//

I found a small one that made me smile  it is sort of a what might have been poem ....

A Thunderstorm in Town

A Reminiscence 1893

She wore a new "terra cotta "dress,
And we stayed , because of the pelting storm,
Within the hansom's dry recess,
Though the horse had stopped; yea motionless
        We sat on, snug and warm.

Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain ,
And the glass that had screened our forms before
Flew up , an out she sprang to her door:
I should have kissed her if the rain
          Had lasted a minute more.
Sort of reminds me of memories from other days, years, that come and sort of make you smile...I can almost see him smile as he remembered and wrote the words...I see him looking on when he penned the last two lines..and thinking ..that was a special day even so...

[Babi]

Here is another nostalgic one...

"We sat at the window"
(Bournemouth, 1875)

We sat at the window looking out,
And the rain came down like silken strings
That Swithin's day.  Each gutter and spout
Babbled unchecked in the busy way
    Of witless things:
Nothing to read, nothing to see
Seemed in that room for her and me
    On Swithin's day.

 We were irked by the scene, by our own selves; yes
For I did not know, nor did she infer
How much there was to read and guess
By her in me, and to see and crown
    By me in her. 
Wasted were two souls in their prime,
And great was the waste, that July time
    When the rain came down.

I especially liked the line "Babbled unchecked in the busy way
    Of witless things:"  I've heard those babbling gutters and spouts. For that matter, I've heard people do the same.   

[MarjV]

The Thunderstorm
My - a remembrance of an opportunity not taken.    And how many have we had thru our lives.    Sadness in that poem to have missed the kiss.

We Sat at the Window Looking Out

Similar feeling of nostalgia as Babi says.     Another lost opportunity - people are so full of richness when we
can take time to know them.

The 3 line poem bellemere quoted is sure something to remember.
Stay near me! Speak my name!
Spirit, perishable as bone
In no such winter can survive alone.
 
  I remember just recently with my awful tooth/face infection how soothing it was when the dentist in my 7 trips there would put his hand lightly on my shoulder - a healing touch if you will.  It helped.   I know he didn't like
the pain he had to inflict in some of the treatment.   Touch seems so absent these days.    I make sure to touch at my fitness class when I talk to someone even if just to lightly touch their shoulder or arm.   It's a connection.

[MarjV]

HER DILEMMA

by: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

THE TWO were silent in a sunless church,
Whose mildewed walls, uneven paving-stones,
And wasted carvings passed antique research;
And nothing broke the clock’s dull monotones.
 
Leaning against a wormy poppy-head,
So wan and worn that he could scarcely stand,
--For he was soon to die,--he softly said,
“Tell me you love me!”--holding hard her hand.
 
She would have given a world to breathe “yes” truly,
So much his life seemed hanging on her mind,
And hence she lied, her heart persuaded throughly,
’Twas worth her soul to be a moment kind.
 
But the sad need thereof, his nearing death,
So mocked humanity that she shamed to prize
A world conditioned thus, or care for breath
Where Nature such dilemmas could devise


Oh my, such another poignant tale!

What a dilemma challenge.    How often does the truth have to be concealed to keep from hurting a person.  Is it always right to conceal?    A gray area I believe. Very gray.

And is Hardy good at expressing a woman's perspective?

Then I Googled and found this about Antigone -   
Antigone's dilemma

[fairanna]

I think we face a dilemma often...and I think we should do the kind thing...and give an answer that is kind and it would be hard to deny  a loved one a burial even if the person was a terrible person...We often never know why someone does some awful deed...There have been some so awful I feel I could pull the switch but having said that I would like them to be buried,,,and my prayer would be if God can forgive them then I will accept that ...

I could not refuse to say something kind and would not consider it a dilemma I think I would have hugged this person and say something comforting very easily ..love has a thousand meanings and surely there must be one suitable for a thousand needs ...

In any case Marj thanks for posting "OUR" dilemma  will be interested in what others think Now I must check the poems I have been reading and decide which to share...we have had 4 days of rain and wind and for some reason I felt overwhelmed by all Of course my windshield wipers HAVE to be changed and were not clearing the windshield so I had to stay...indoors

[BarbStAubrey]

I did not know the story of Antigone - wow - if she buries her brother who is it sounds like was a jerk and a threat then she is buried in a wall which I understand is what immured means - found the story on-line - thanks Marj -  another one of those Greek stories that are used to say something in Literature that goes over our heads if we are not familiar with the Greek tale.

More and more of the homeschool moms are teaching their kids Latin and Greek - interesting - a classical eduction but you have to get it at home rather than in the classroom.

[BarbStAubrey]

found this interesting poem from Thomas Hardy

Tolerance

'It is a foolish thing,' said I,
'To bear with such, and pass it by;
Yet so I do, I know not why!'

And at each clash I would surmise
That if I had acted otherwise
I might have saved me many sighs.

But now the only happiness
In looking back that I possess —
Whose lack would leave me comfortless —

Is to remember I refrained
From masteries I might have gained,
And for my tolerance was disdained;

For see, a tomb. And if it were
I had bent and broke, I should not dare
To linger in the shadows there.

[fairanna]

I often wonder when I read Hardy's poems  or any poets words (myself included) whether they are writing about something that happened to them . or something they read about and imagined a poem about it I know there are times I write about something I have not experienced ..but it seems when I sit at my computer , a word, a thought will come to me and then it seems as if my computer is waiting for me to put it into a poem..there are times when the poem is finished I wonder why I wrote ..and I wonder if not only Hardy writes that way but perhaps all poets...here is one I read today Tell me what you think

The Torn Letter

I tore your letter into strips
No bigger than the airy feathers
That ducks preen out in changing weathers
Upon the shifting ripple-tips.

In darkness on my bed alone
I seemed to see you in a vision.
And hear you say:"Why this derision
Of one drawn to you, though unknown?"

Yes, eve's quick mood has run its course,
The night had cooled my hasty madness;
I suffered a regretful sadness
Which deepened into real remorse.

I thought what pensive patient days
A soul must know of grain so tender,
How much of good must  grace the sender
Of such sweet words in such bright phrase.

Uprising then,as things unpriced
I sought each fragment, patched and mended;
The midnight whitened ere I had ended
And gathered words I had sacrificed.

But some, alas, of those I threw
Were past my search, destroyed forever:
They were your name and place:and never
Did I regain those clues to you.

I learnt I had missed , by rash unheed,
My track; that, so the Will decided,
In life, death, we should be divided,
And at the sense I ached indeed.

That ache for you , born long ago,
Throbs on: I could never outgrow it ,
What a revenge, did you but know it!
But that, thank God , you do not know.

[Babi]

A poem that tells a story, ANNA.  Surely something must have triggered that little detail about a letter from a stranger.  While I could understand the initial scorn, and the following regret for her (see how I assume it is a 'her')..hasty action, it should have ended there.  The idea that the poet continued to ache and regret the loss for the rest of her life is too extreme.

I found another Hardy poem to share. Haven't we all spent some 'waiting' time looking at the people around us, and imagining who they are and where they are going?

 An Autumn Rain-Scene
   by Thomas Hardy

There trudges one to a merry-making
With sturdy swing,
On whom the rain comes down.

To fetch the saving medicament
Is another bent,
On whom the rain comes down.

One slowly drives his herd to the stall
Ere ill befall,
On whom the rain comes down.

This bears his missives of life and death
With quickening breath,
On whom the rain comes down.

One watches for signals of wreck or war
From the hill afar,
On whom the rain comes down.

No care if he gain a shelter or none,
Unhired moves on,
On whom the rain comes down.

And another knows nought of its chilling fall
Upon him at all,
On whom the rain comes down.

[fairanna]

Babi it has rained here for four days and is raining again this morning I know everyone must be like me ...asking WHERE ARE YOU SUN?

I was looking for a rain poem and it seems serendipitous you found one ...and yes I am that curious I often wonder about people about me ...neighbors who are not friendly at all., what made them so suspicious ? did some one do them harm so they avoid all others,...any number of times I have wondered about those who have peopled my life...this is a poem that asks the questions .and where are you sun?

[fairanna]

This being St Patricks Day and I being a Hannigan and a Delahanty Irish songs were remembered when I was a child and this was one of my favorites

The Kerry Dance


Chorus:
Oh, the days of the Kerry dancing
Oh, the ring of the piper's tune
Oh, for one of those hours of gladness
Gone, alas, like our youth, too soon!

When the boys began to gather
In the glen of a summer's night
And the Kerry piper's tuning
Made us long with wild delight!
Oh, to think of it
Oh, to dream of it
Fills my heart with tears!

Chorus:

Was there ever a sweeter Colleen
In the dance than Eily More
Or a prouder lad than Thady
As he boldly took the floor.

Lads and lasses to your places
Up the middle and down again
Ah, the merry hearted laughter
Ringing through the happy glen!
Oh, to think of it
Oh, to dream of it
Fills my heart with tears!

Chorus:

Time goes on, and the happy years are dead
And one by one the merry hearts are fled
Silent now is the wild and lonely glen
Where the bright glad laugh will echo ne'er again
Only dreaming of days gone by in my heart I hear.

Loving voices of old companions
Stealing out of the past once more
And the sound of the dear old music
Soft and sweet as in days of yore.

When the boys began to gather
In the glen of a summer's night
And the Kerry piper's tuning
Made us long with wild delight!
Oh, to think of it
Oh, to dream of it
Fills my heart with tears!

Chorus:
 

[BarbStAubrey]

Fairanna it looks like we have to take a break from Thomas Hardy today in order to celebrate the Irish - Have not found any of Hardy's poetry that is about Ireland or the Irish - However, here is one that is being touted as a new find but it actually has been around since Victorian Times and written by an Englishman. Could account for the discription of the cottage, man and children.

J. Stanyan Bigg - JOHN STANYAN BIGG English poet and journalist (1828 - 1865) wrote  "An Irish Picture" - A Victorian Poetry, found in the Fall of 2001  by Kerry McSweeney

An Irish Picture

A smoking swamp before a cottage door;
A drowned dog bobbing to a soleless shoe;
A broken wash-tub, with its ragged staves
Swimming and ducking to a battered hat,
Whenever the wind stirs the reedy slime;
A tumbled peat-stack, dripping in the rain;
A long, lank pig, with dissipated eyes,
Leading a vagrant life among the moors;
A rotting paling, and a plot of ground,
With fifteen cabbage-stalks among lush weeds;
A moss-grown pathway, and a worn-out gate,
Its broken bars down-dangling from the nails;
A windy cottage, with a leaky thatch,
And two dim windows set like eyes asquint;
A bulging doorway, with a drunken lean;
Two half-nude children dabbling in the mire,
And scrambling eagerly for bottle-necks;
A man akimbo at the open door,
His battered hat slouched o'er his sottish eyes,
Smoking contented in the falling rain.

[Babi]

Oh, dear!  I much prefer FairAnna's poem, Barb.  Such a terrible picture from Mr. Biggs.  I think I will read again about Eily More and Thady, to take that picture into my day.

[BarbStAubrey]

Ah yes -  the thing is that the English rules and  lack of assistance during the great hunger was in large measure responsible for what is described and yet there is much written that shows not only this picture of poverty but a tone of the"un-washed" with lines like "Leading a vagrant life among the moors;" - Reminds me of  how we accepted and could read a similar view of blacks up until the Civil Rights Movement - IN both instances their circumstances were down and out but so little respect was shown much less seeing and commenting on their courage to live through their harsh life.

From all the news out of Ireland it is only the past 30 years or so that Ireland is no longer the place of bone chilling poverty - I remember seeing a PBS special of the author who wrote Angelia's Ashes returning to Ireland and not only could he not find the Ireland of his childhood but when he spoke with the young school and working adults they had no reference to the Ireland of his childhood.

Like all of  us we prefer to celebrate the best memories so that even a fantasized version of life becomes more real than reality. However, I too prefer the sunny outlook and  joy expressed in "The Kerry Dance."

[Sandy]

  I enjoy his poetry. It seems to set a mood that speaks to me whether I am feeling happy or sad. It seems so true and so human. Maybe it is because I am a visual person who loves rainy days.

  Sandy

[BarbStAubrey]

Glad  you  find something in these pages Sandy - welcome - we look forward to your comments or your sharing of a poem - this month the focus is on Thomas Hardy but as you can see we're OK with breaking into another's poems if the spirit moves us...

[ALF43]

I cracked up when I r/c this in my Poetry class.  It reminded me of us, trying to decipher a poem here, toghether.

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a  chair with rope
and torure a confession out of it.

The begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

-by Billy Collins

[BarbStAubrey]

  Hi Alf - you bring back memories - we focused on Billy Collins back on SeniorNet - unfortunately and sadly all those discussions for the last  year and a half are lost. We even  had a few poets join  us - still a bitter pill. Ah So...

[bellemere]

Oh it's great to read the Kerry Dancers on St. Patrick's Day but Irish poetry needs amonth of its own. Yeats, Oscar Wilde, Brendan Behan, Sean o'Casey, James Joyce, Patrick Kavanagh, Becket, Seamus Heany, but ;maybe this will hold us until we get to that point.

When You Are Old

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty, with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrm soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur a little sadly how Love fled,
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

----Yeats

[BarbStAubrey]

Yes, Bellemere great Irish poets abound - but then the Irish have a way when it comes to writing and speaking don't they - I've yet to read a bad story written by an Irish author - I sware part of Obama's magic when he makes a speech is overlapping his Black heritage on his Irish heritage.

[fairanna]

Of course I am enjoying every poem and especially the Irish poems...:-)I have a dear friend who has given me something Irish each year since my husband died in 1994,,,because it was the only day he never forgot in 43 (nearly 44) years ...and she wanted to remember me as a way of remembering him as well,,,I am wearing today a lovely necklace , a gift from yesterday. a gold chain and a circle peopled with rhinestones and in the center  green stones in the shape of a shamrock....but the best gift is a small book called Irish Wit and WIsdom   I am going to post one because this is they way it was ...he never forgot me and I feel him near even now...

Dry be that  tear

Ask'st thou how long my love shall stay,
When all that's new is past?
How long? Ah! Delia, can I say,
How long my life shall last ?
Dry be that tear, be hushed that sigh;
At least I'll love thee till I die-
Hushed be that sigh.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

[bellemere]

Oh, one more Irish poem before bed.

The Fiddler of Dooney

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea.
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Mocharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time
To St. Peter sitting is state,
He will smile at the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate.

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle,
And the merry love to dance.

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With "Here is the fiddler of 'Dooney!"
And dance like a wave of the sea.

[bellemere]

No, just one more: The Parting Glass

Of all the money that ere I had, I spent it in good company.
And of all the harm that ere I've done, alas was done to none but me.
And all I've done for want of wit, to memory now I cannot recall.
So fill me to the parting glass. Goodnight and joy be with you all.

Of all the comrades that ere I had, they're sorry for my going away,
And of all the sweethearts that ere I had , they wish me one more day to stay,
But since it falls unto my lot that I should rise while you should not,
I will gently rise and I'll softly call, "Goodnight and joy be with you all!"

GOOD NIGHT AND JOY BE WITH YOU ALL!

[Babi]

I've always liked that Yeats poem, BELLEMARIE; it was a pleasure to read it again.

An accurate analogy there, BARB. Society does tend to assuage it's collective conscience blaming the underdog for his problems.

 Here's another poem of Hardy's that I like. The descriptions are lovely,
and the ever-present nostalgia is gentler than in some other poems.

BEENY CLIFF

by: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)


I. THE opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea,
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free--
The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.
 
II.  The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away
In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say,
As we laughed light-heartedly aloft in that clear-sunned March day.
 
III. A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain,
And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain,
And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the main.
 
IV. --Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky,
And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh,
And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by?
 
V. What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore,
The woman now is--elsewhere--whom the ambling pony bore,
And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore.

[fairanna]

Bellmere and Babi thanks for the poems you posted ...after six days of rain I see a bright light and believe the sun has survived the cloak of dark skies and will shine again until night...as I read the poems I found as I always do a people and a place I never knew...I see what the poets see and feel what the poets feel....I don't find that odd but tells me no matter when a poet lived or where or how ,..across the years they take me and I am with them now,,,poetry feeds a need in me that has been fed since I was a child...now I must go and open up my Hardy book and find a poem to share.....

[fairanna]

Ahhh Here is one I found ..I was attracted by the title and then by the poem itself ..having moved over a dozen times the poem than attracted me .. the only difference is .. like the Johnny Mercer song "any place I hang my hat is home" we took home with us...

Starlings on the Roof

'No smoke spreads out of this chimney -pot,
The people who lived here have left the spot,
And others are coming who knew them not.

"If you listen anon, with an ear intent,
The voices, you'll find , will be different
From the well-known ones of those who went.'

'Why did they go? Their tones so bland
Were quite familiar it out band;
The comers we shall not understand.'

'They look for a new life, rich and strange;
They do not know that, let them range
Wherever they may ,they will get no change.

'They will drag their house-gear ever so far
In search for a home no miseries mar,
They will find that as they were they are,

'That every hearth has a ghost , alack,
And be but the scene of a bivouac
Till they move their last-no care to pack!'

[Sandy]

   I  was so sad when we left William Wordsworth, but how else would we ever have come to Thomas Hardy? Thank you. He is one I never appreciated when I was young.

    Sandy

[bellemere]

I have mentioned to a couple of people that we are reading the poetry of Thomas Hardy, and they say."Poetry? I never knew he wrote any."  These were people who knew his novels, "Tess", Jude' etc. but never heard of his poetry.  It is a puzzling question.  The novels have become part of the canon, read over the world.  but he stopped writing them and turned to poetry which few people read.  How come?  One reason given was that the novels were controversial and the publishers were always trying to tone them down.  That never stopped D.H. lawrence.  Or, a decade later, James Joyce. I am not real familiar with the novels but I read Tess in college and Jude later.  The certainly were realistic but only the betrayal of Tess by Angel what's his name was remotely shocking.  Why the switch? 
The poetry is good, but I think the work shows.  Like the work of a stone mason.  It is full of great images, intersting word coinages, little worldly morality lessons, but to me, it just doesn't sing.  Is it me?

[Babi]

  What was shocking in one era will not raise an eyebrow in a later time, Bellemarie.  For instance, the "Decameron' of Boccaccio was described as highly scandalous and lewd.  When I finally read it, (at a safely mature age  ),
I found it quite modest by today'standards.  I think Boccaccio would faint if he read some of our modern books, much less saw some of the show-all-and-spare-no-details movies. 

[fairanna]

I reread some of the poems and loved this line...I will remember it when next we get a gentle rain ....And the rain came down like silken strings

Bellemere there are many who read novels and fewer who enjoy poetry   I didnt know when I read Tess and Far from a Maddening crowd that Hardy wrote poetry ..but I love poetry more than a novel and I have read hundreds .. in fact just donated some of the old ones to my church and they are selling them on ebay...they expect to get at least 400 dollars for them...and I have purchased so many books over the sixty years of my adult life I must have spent thousands and still have books everywhere and keep buying them ..I was not a smoker or a drinker so I think reading and buying books was my addiction...everyone is entitled to at least one !!

When we began a monthly study of a single poet  it was and to me rather exciting ..I had not read all of the poets studied but we not only read what the poet wrote but the era in which they lived, why they wrote and what the poetry meant to us.. Most wrote about what they knew ...and some was tragic....others were like me ..whether my own is good or bad doesnt mean anything because I write because I cannot not write.. if others enjoy that is fine but in the end I do it first for me...and as I said I HAVE TO WRITE>

AND READ and learn why and what other poets wrote, I dont like everything a poet writes but I do take into consideration when they lived and what might have influenced them...it is a rare opportunity to look into someones mind...and here is the one I read this afternoon and will post it now..because spring is nearly here ..the Bradford Pears are in all their glory, my plum tree is its lacy gown, the iris are pushing the swords above the ground preparing for the Empresses to arrive .. my lilac bushes and rose bush show signs that it wont be long before they too will shout SPRING IS HERE and the hydrangea all have tiny green nubs that let;s me know I will have beauty in my yard until autumn says its here...

Joys of Memory

When the spring comes round, and a certain day
Looks out from the brume by the eastern copsetrees
And says , Remember ,
I begin again , as if it were new,
A day of like date I once lived through.
Whiling it hour by hour away;
So shall I do till my December ,
When spring comes round.

I take my holiday then and my rest
Away from the dun life here about me ,
Old hours re-greeting
With the quiet sense that bring they must
Such throbs as at first , till I  house with dust,
And in the numbness my heartsome zest
For things that were , be past repeating
When spring comes round.

This one is special in many ways but mostly because 15 years ago Mar 24 my dear husband went HOME ..and my memory is as clear as it was then and will be so until my December

[Sandy]

   Fairanna, how much I enjoyed what you posted. I like to read your thoughts about poetry and life in general. This poetry page is one of my joys. There are poems that have lines I want to memorize as they touch me so deeply. Never happened when I was young. Maybe the love of poetry is one of the surprise joys of being old. And there are more than I expected.

  Sandra

[MarjV]

Merry Vernal Equinox everyone!

I was catching up on reading and the last poem above me about Spring
was a reminder that today is the first day.   Even tho we have a wintry temp this morning the poem and the date give a wee bit o' lightness to myself.

I like these lines from above:
And in the numbness my heartsome zest
For things that were , be past repeating
When spring comes round.

We all get feelings of "numbness" now and again.