Poetry Page

[BarbStAubrey]

Welcome to our Poetry Page.

Our page for those who listen to words that open our heart, imagination, and our feelings.
 This is our continuing tradition of sharing poems. Please join us!

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening By Robert Frost Whose woods these are I think I know.    His house is in the village though;    He will not see me stopping here    To watch his woods fill up with snow.    My little horse must think it queer    To stop without a farmhouse near    Between the woods and frozen lake    The darkest evening of the year.    He gives his harness bells a shake    To ask if there is some mistake.    The only other sound’s the sweep    Of easy wind and downy flake.    The woods are lovely, dark and deep,    But I have promises to keep,    And miles to go before I sleep,    And miles to go before I sleep.

Discussion Leaders: Barbara

[BarbStAubrey]

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence. Simplify, simplify. ~ Henry David Thoreau

[BarbStAubrey]

"For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone." ~ Audrey Hepburn

[BarbStAubrey]

Winter-Time Robert Louis Stevenson - 1850-1894 Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,    A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;    Blinks but an hour or two; and then,    A blood-red orange, sets again.        Before the stars have left the skies, At morning in the dark I rise;    And shivering in my nakedness,    By the cold candle, bathe and dress.        Close by the jolly fire I sit    To warm my frozen bones a bit; Or with a reindeer-sled, explore    The colder countries round the door.        When to go out, my nurse doth wrap    Me in my comforter and cap;    The cold wind burns my face, and blows Its frosty pepper up my nose.        Black are my steps on silver sod;    Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;    And tree and house, and hill and lake,    Are frosted like a wedding-cake.

[Frybabe]

I don't believe I knew Robert Louis Stevenson wrote poems. This one is very nice. My favorite poet is Robert Frost, so it is no surprise that I thoroughly enjoyed "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening".

Here is one I found that is interesting, although I don't really agree with wishing to get out and mow the lawn .

January's Sad Refrain

Gone, the last holiday,
Another year passed away.
Now our taxes we must pay,
Cold and gray marks the day.

Barren trees and icy ground,
Not much pleasure to be found,
Winter holds us in its grip,
As icy winds howl and rip.

Move with caution all a-round,
Train whistles a lonly sound.
If only I was half my age,
I’d ride to warmth, with my wage.

But for now I will light the fire,
And spin warm dreams as I retire,
To dream of sun that burns like fire,
Of heat and sweat that I’ll soon tire.

Oh, please just let the winter pass,
For now I long to mow the grass.
Human nature’s a fickle lass,
We long for what we can not grasp.

We may wish this time to past,
But life's time moves much too fast.
So look for joy, ignore the cold and pain,
We all know January’s sad refrain.
     Teresa Dearing

[nlhome]

Poetry. Thank you all.

[BarbStAubrey]

Full Inaugural Poem: The Hill We Climb: When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never ending shade? The loss we carry. A sea we must wade. We braved the belly of the beast We’ve learned that quiet isn't always peace, and the norms and notions of what just is isn't always justice. And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn't broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one. And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn't mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man. And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true. That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried. That we'll forever be tied together, victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division. Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. If we're to live up to our own time, then victory won't lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we've made. That is the promise to glade. The hill we climb, if only we dare, it's because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It's the past we step into and how we repair it. We've seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it, Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour. But within it we found the power to author a new chapter, To offer hope and laughter to ourselves. So, while once we asked how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us? We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain. If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children's birthright. So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left. With every breath my bronze pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the golden hills of the west. We will rise from the windswept north, east where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked south. We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover. And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid. The new dawn balloons as we free it. For there is always light, if only we're brave enough to see it. If only we're brave enough to be it.

[jane]

And let us credit the poet of that work

—Amanda Gorman.

[PatH]

Thanks for printing the words to that, Barb.  It's impossible to see all its cleverness just hearing it aloud once.

Hurrah for Amanda Gorman.

And thanks for that nice cluster of poems to set the winter mood.

[BarbStAubrey]

“So Tired Blues” by Langston Hughes With the sun in my hand Gonna throw the sun Way across the land- Cause I’m tired, Tired as I can be

[BarbStAubrey]

“Warning” by Jenny Joseph When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells And run my stick along the public railings And make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain And pick flowers in other people’s gardens And learn to spit. You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat And eat three pounds of sausages at a go Or only bread and pickle for a week And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes. But now we must have clothes that keep us dry And pay our rent and not swear in the street And set a good example for the children. We must have friends to dinner and read the papers. But maybe I ought to practice a little now? So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

[BarbStAubrey]

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night.

[BarbStAubrey]

“On The Ning Nang Nong” by Spike Milligan On the Ning Nang Nong Where the Cows go Bong! and the monkeys all say BOO! There’s a Nong Nang Ning Where the trees go Ping! And the tea pots jibber jabber joo. On the Nong Ning Nang All the mice go Clang And you just can’t catch ’em when they do! So its Ning Nang Nong Cows go Bong! Nong Nang Ning Trees go ping Nong Ning Nang The mice go Clang What a noisy place to belong is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!

[BarbStAubrey]

“Hope Is The Thing With Feathers” by Emily Dickinson ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers — That perches in the soul — And sings the tune without the words — And never stops — at all — And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard — And sore must be the storm — That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm — I’ve heard it in the chillest land — And on the strangest Sea — Yet, never, in Extremity, It asked a crumb — of Me.

[BarbStAubrey]

“A Poison Tree” by William Blake I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I watered it in fears, Night and morning with my tears; And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright. And my foe beheld it shine. And he knew that it was mine, And into my garden stole When the night had veiled the pole; In the morning glad I see My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

[BarbStAubrey]

[BarbStAubrey]

[BarbStAubrey]

[BarbStAubrey]

Some Days Billy Collins - 1941- Some days I put the people in their places at the table, bend their legs at the knees, if they come with that feature, and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs. All afternoon they face one another, the man in the brown suit, the woman in the blue dress, perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved. But other days, I am the one who is lifted up by the ribs, then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse to sit with the others at the long table. Very funny, but how would you like it if you never knew from one day to the next if you were going to spend it striding around like a vivid god, your shoulders in the clouds, or sitting down there amidst the wallpaper, staring straight ahead with your little plastic face?

[PatH]

First inspiration, then ending with a chuckle.  Thank you, Barb.

[Frybabe]

Here is an Ogden Nash I hadn't read before.

Look What You Did, Christopher!

In fourteen hundred and ninety-two,
Someone sailed the ocean blue.
Somebody borrowed the fare in Spain
For a business trip on the bounding main,
And to prove to the people, by actual test,
You could get to the East by sailing West.
Somebody said, Sail on! Sail on!
And studied China and China's lingo,
And cried from the bow, There's China now!
And promptly bumped into San Domingo.
Somebody murmured, Oh dear, oh dear!
I've discovered the Western Hemisphere.

And that, you may think, my friends, was that.
But it wasn't. Not by a fireman's hat.
Well enough wasn't left alone,
And Columbus was only a cornerstone.
There came the Spaniards,
There came the Greeks,
There came the Pilgrims in leather breeks.
There came the Dutch,
And the Poles and Swedes,
The Persians, too,
And perhaps the Medes,
The Letts, the Lapps, and the Lithuanians,
Regal Russians, and ripe Roumanians.
There came the French
And there came the Finns,
And the Japanese
With their formal grins.
The Tartars came,
And the Terrible Turks -
In a word, humanity shot the works.
And the country that should have been Cathay
Decided to be
The U.S.A.

And that, you may think, my friends, was that.
But it wasn't. Not by a fireman's hat.
Christopher C. was the cornerstone,
And well enough wasn't left alone.
For those who followed
When he was through,
They burned to discover something, too.
Somebody, bored with rural scenery,
Went to work and invented machinery,
While a couple of other mental giants
Got together
And thought up Science.
Platinum blondes
(They were once peroxide),
Peruvian bonds
And carbon monoxide,
Tax evaders
And Vitamin A,
Vice crusaders,
And tattletale gray -
These, with many another phobia,
We owe to that famous Twelfth of Octobia.
O misery, misery, mumble and moan!
Someone invented the telephone,
And interrupted a nation's slumbers,
Ringing wrong but similar numbers.
Someone devised the silver screen
And the intimate Hollywood magazine,
And life is a Hades
Of clicking cameras,
And foreign ladies
Behaving amorous.
Gags have erased
Amusing dialog,
As gas has replaced
The crackling firelog.
All that glitters is sold as gold,
And our daily diet grows odder and odder,
And breakfast foods are dusty and cold -
It's a wise child
That knows its fodder.
Someone invented the automobile,
And good Americans took the wheel
To view American rivers and rills
And justly famous forests and hills -
But someone equally enterprising
Had invented billboard advertising.
You linger at home
In dark despair,
And wistfully try the electric air.
You hope against hope for a quiz imperial,
And what do they give you?
A doctor serial.
Oh, Columbus was only a cornerstone,
And well enough wasn't left alone,
For the Inquisition was less tyrannical
Than the iron rules of an age mechanical,
Which, because of an error in '92,
Are clamped like corsets on me and you,
While Children of Nature we'd be today
If San Domingo
Had been Cathay.

And that, you may think, my friends, is that.
But it isn't - not by a fireman's hat.
The American people,
With grins jocose,
Always survive the fatal dose.
And though our systems are slightly wobbly,
We'll fool the doctor this time, probly.

[PatH]

New to me too, and hilarious.

[BarbStAubrey]

Wonderful - great find - I never heard it either but just too perfect especially now...

[hats]

Thank you, Pat H and Barb~

[PatH]

Oh, hats!  It's good to see you again!  I've wondered how you were, and how this dreadful time was treating you.  As you can see, we're still hobbling along one way or another, and life is easing up a bit.  Some of us are even getting back to reading again.

[hats]

Hi Pat H,

Thank you for the pleasant thoughts. Yes, we have and some are still going through these strange and different times. I am rereading your Ogden Nash poem. I have been  trying to "'sail on.'" It's not easy. Somebody said, Sail on! Sail on!

[BarbStAubrey]

Nice to see your post hats - trying to sail on is really not all that easy I agree - there are reminders how difficult this time in our history no matter where you look - TV is as bad as social media and the news is impossible - walking down the street has become most unfriendly - thank goodness I am not living in an apartment in some high rise - at least I have my backyard to look on and sit under an oak with coffee - books and old movies seem to be the only escape -

Found this and thought it was about one of the issues of the day  -  From an Ode by James Russell Lowell recited at Harvard welcoming back students who had fought in the Civil War

Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil           Amid the dust of books to find her, Content at last, for guerdon of their toil,           With the cast mantle she hath left behind her.                  Many in sad faith sought for her,                  Many with crossed hands sighed for her;                  But these, our brothers, fought for her,                  At life's dear peril wrought for her,                  So loved her that they died for her,                  Tasting the raptured fleetness                  Of her divine completeness                       Their higher instinct knew Those love her best who to themselves are true, And what they dare to dream of, dare to do;                  They followed her and found her                  Where all may hope to find, Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind, But beautiful, with danger's sweetness round her.                  Where faith made whole with deed                  Breathes its awakening breath                  Into the lifeless creed,                  They saw her plumed and mailed,                  With sweet, stern face unveiled, And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death.

[BarbStAubrey]

"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.”

[PatH]

All these years I've been running across eglantine in poetry without ever looking it up to see what kind of flower it is.  it's finally about time to learn.  Turns out its, sweetbriar, a wild rose, very pretty.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_rubiginosa

Thanks, Barb.

[BarbStAubrey]

Yes, don't know if everyone knew their flowers back in the 1500s but Shakespeare sure did among so many things he included in his plays and poetry. I think eglantine is one of the few wild roses that the deer will not eat. Been isolating from current events by reading poetry - the classic poem still fills me where as contemporary poetry does not - I think the classic takes you beyond to the ethereal and eternal where as contemporary poetry seems grounded in the here and now which is fine but does not prompt my soul to sing. 

[PatH]

I don't always relate to modern poetry either.  Partly it seems too formless to me.  I don't have the knack of teasing out the beauty in it, and probably won't acquire it, since I'm not reading much modern stuff.

Shakespeare also knew his birds, which turned out to be disadvantageous to us, since someone decided to import to America all the birds mentioned by him.  Of course the ones that survived weren't the glorious ones like the skylark, but the nuisance ones like the house finch and starling.

[Frybabe]

The first two lines seem familiar, but not the rest.

I am with you, PatH. A lot of modern poems, and a few not so modern, seem to lack a kind of rhythm to them. The words flow, not jerked about.

[PatH]

Ditto about the first two lines.

[BarbStAubrey]

Oberon:

Having once this juice,
I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep,

And drop the liquor of it in her eyes
The next thing then she waking looks upon

(Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape)

She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
And ere I take this charm from off her sight

The flower love-in-idleness is the pansy, the ‘fair vestal, throned by the west’ is Queen Elizabeth I, and one function of this fairy vision is to constitute Shakespeare’s largest and most direct tribute to his monarch during her lifetime.  She passes on, and remains fancy-free; the arrow of Cupid, unable to wound the Virgin Queen, instead converts the pansy into a universal love charm.  It is as though Elizabeth’s choice of chastity opens up a cosmos of erotic possibilities for others, but at the high cost of accident and arbitrariness replacing her reasoned choice.  Love at first sight, exalted in Romeo and Juliet, is pictured here as calamity.  The ironic possibilities of the love elixir are first intimated when, in one of the play’s most exquisite passages, Oberon plots the ensnarement of Titania:

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.

There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;

And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,

[Frybabe]

Ahhhhh! A Midsummer Night's Dream, one of my least favorite Shakespeare plays. No wonder I didn't recognize more of the lines.

[BarbStAubrey]

One Art By Elizabeth Bishop The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or  next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster. —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

[Frybabe]

I suspect an Alzheimer's theme in that poem, Barb.

[BarbStAubrey]

Could be - however what impacted me was a description of all the continuous loses as we age - Everything we knew is gone - friends pass - physical capacity to do things goes - things we have in our home not only disintegrate with age but their usefulness goes with new technology replacing them - the way we entertained goes and therefore all our serving and cooking items become like museum pieces - Rivers and ponds either change with additional use or they are not taken care of and are chocked to uselessness - Nearby countryside landscapes are no longer a Sunday drive away but rather wall to wall housing - Shops disappear, some are replaced but many are not - As we age we cannot get through the day without reverting to naps and our hands will not keep up with the handwork we took pride in accomplishing - it goes on and on.

I think for me two summer's ago I visited places back east where I lived during part of my childhood and was shocked not just the change in architecture that I expected but the attitudes of people and difference in I would say a lack of pride in their community -

Since that trip I question who are we - if our memory is our past and the past as we experienced and saw it is no longer then what is memory - a fairyland - definitely lost in the annals of history as the saying goes - and if so how can anyone have PTSD which is tied to a memory that is really a fantasy - is what happens and what exists regardless man made or nature only make-believe that is erased by the 'new kid on the block'  -

When what made us courageous, strong, caring even heroes no longer exists but is lost to a few memories it is as if the past dies and bits die without any record and so the idea of being guided by history is trying to create a puzzle with pieces missing and so the concept of loss to me is ongoing, sad, and seldom talked about except by those who see it among Alzheimer patients rather than seeing it as an everyday occurrence - it slips through our fingers before there is a record of the loss.   

[PatH]

Frybabe, I felt a whiff of Alzheimer's too, but I think the poem is mostly doing what Barb says, describing "all the continuous losses as we age".  I looked Bishop up, and the poem tracks events in her personal life.  Her father died when she was a baby, and the grief destroyed her mother, who spent the rest of her life in an asylum.  Bishop was raised in turn by several sets of relatives, and one of the transitions, from a good fit to a bad fit, was traumatic.  She did lose a continent; she moved to Brazil, where she translated poetry, wrote some of her own, and lived with a woman writer and mentor.  The relationship cooled, and when the woman died, Bishop returned to the US, but did miss Brazil.  And so on.

It's a bittersweet poem to read, especially now when, in addition to coping with the standard losses and problems of aging, we are all struggling to maintain ourselves as the kind of human beings we mean to be, in the face of unprecedented problems, and losses, situations in which the path is baffling and unclear.

Barb, Bishop is a poet I've never gotten around to reading.  Thanks for calling this poem to my attention.

[BarbStAubrey]

Becoming my daily mantra given the baffling and unclear...

When you’ve lost every vestige of hope And you think you are beaten and done, When you’ve come to the end of your rope, Tie a knot in the end and hang on. Have courage; for here is the dope; When you stand with your back to the wall, Though you’ve come to the end of your rope Tie a knot in the end and hang on. Don’t admit that life’s getting your goat When your friends seem to all disappear, When you’ve come to the end of your rope, Tie a knot in the end and hang on. –Margaret Nickerson Martin