Poetry Page

[BarbStAubrey]

The Apple Orchard           ~ by Shawn Bailey The dew-softened blades of fescue wet my feet, small brushstrokes of icy wetness on my way to the orchard. The sunlight scatters the morning mist that shelters the trees from the horizon. I spy the juicy red apples lounging in the trees, moist with dawn and there are thousands of them. Fruitful, edible decor.

Autumn Poetry

In this Discussion we share what stirs our heart -
Bring us a gift of a poem
Yours, or the work of another poet.

• Famous Poets and Poems about Autumn
• Fall Season Poems

Discussion Leaders: Barb & fairanna

[Babi]

 "Please Listen" is a powerful poem...and excellent advice. I have always been too
quick to try and help someone solve a problem.  Like the man says, advice is cheap.
It's hard to know sometimes whether someone wants help, or just wants to put it all
into words and be heard.

"...the earth has turned scarlet through fierce belief.."   That line left me bemused,
wondering what Ms. Harjo meant by it.

[Tomereader1]

Perhaps: "the earth has turned scarlet..." meaning by blood shed in wars because of "fierce belief".  That would make sense to me.

[BarbStAubrey]

Yes. Tomreader that is what I make of the phrase as well - that scarlet represents all the blood spilled in war and wars are about folks inability to negotiate what they each fiercely believe is acceptable  that others should  make room for and respect.

We're still at it aren't we as we think our ideas for success is how we measure the value of land, buildings, people, nations, religions, the environment.  On and on it goes as we think our view should be top dog and we are willing to stand firm with teeth bared to further our beliefs. Ah so - it does take two to tango and so there has to be room for all views and that takes work, respect and a willingness to find answers.

Ownership is a funny thing - do we own our ideas, the land, minerals - the wind, a view, and yet all of these have been the basis of a court case and the basis of many a war.

[roshanarose]

After reading Joy Harjo and Sandburg it occurs to me that often the poems with the simplest words move us the most.  In Central Australia the earth literally is red; and in American Indian folklore the crow is regarded as a "shape shifter" and in some cultures crows represent the souls of the dead.  If you are able to tie them all together you must have lived a thousand lifetimes, like the crow.

Chief Seattle

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land?
The idea is strange to us.
If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water,
how can you buy them?
Every part of the Earth is sacred to my people.
Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clear and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.
The sap which courses through the trees carries the memory and experience of my people.
The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.

The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars.
Our dead never forget this beautiful Earth, for it is the mother of the red man.
We are part of the Earth and it is part of us.
The perfumed flowers are our sisters, the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers.
The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and the man, all belong to the same family.

So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us.
The Great White Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves.
He will be our father and we will be his children.
So we will consider your offer to buy land.
But it will not be easy.
For this land is sacred to us.

This shining water that moves in streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors.
If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred blood of our ancestors.
If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events in the life of my people.
The waters murmur is the voice of my father's father.

The rivers of our brothers they quench our thirst.
The rivers carry our canoes and feed our children.
If we sell you our land, you must remember to teach your children that the rivers are our brothers, and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness that you would give my brother.
 We know that the white man does not understand our ways.
One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs.
The Earth is not his brother, but his enemy and when he has conquered it, he moves on.
He leaves his father's graves behind, and he does not care.
He kidnaps the Earth from his children, and he does not care.

[BarbStAubrey]

Ouch - profound and yet so true - what a damaging and embarrassing legacy to leave...

I believe in progress but we sure have not figured out how to combine progress with caring for the earth - nor caring for its people -

I find that combination to be a struggle in my own life and if I cannot figure it out for a simple shelter, transportation and sustenance balanced against earning the where with all to support services to and the maintenance of my shelter, transportation and sustenance I cannot complain too loudly when small business cannot figure it out much less large corporations -

We assume Business and Government has the knowledge and wisdom of Soloman and because of greed or catering to the money to secure re-election those in power do not use it - I wonder if part of the problem is few of us have figured out how to balance progress with taking care of this earth.

And then to reclaim the use of changed property is another nightmare of balance - just consider the drawn out negotiations over re-building the twin towers or what should or should  not be built near ground zero - it sure was easier when progress like buildings in large cities is not an issue and we could leave the earth as it was when we walked before roads and aeroplanes much less rocket ships into outer space.

How do we balance it....

Balance    
          ~ by Adam Zagajewski  ~ translated by Clare Cavanagh  

I watched the arctic landscape from above
and thought of nothing, lovely nothing.
I observed white canopies of clouds, vast
expanses where no wolf tracks could be found.

I thought about you and about the emptiness
that can promise one thing only: plenitude—
and that a certain sort of snowy wasteland
bursts from a surfeit of happiness.

As we drew closer to our landing,
the vulnerable earth emerged among the clouds,
comic gardens forgotten by their owners,
pale grass plagued by winter and the wind.

I put my book down and for an instant felt
a perfect balance between waking and dreams.
But when the plane touched concrete, then
assiduously circled the airport's labryinth,

I once again knew nothing. The darkness
of daily wanderings resumed, the day's sweet darkness,
the darkness of the voice that counts and measures,
remembers and forgets.
 

[Babi]

 AH, yes, TOMEREADER, that does make sense. Thank you.

  We have, at least, begun to understand the need to care for the earth. Whether it
is enough, I don't know. I can only hope it's not too little, too late. I don't think
I would ever go so far as to say business and government are founts of wisdom , but
they do have resources and funds. The difficult balance, of course, is assigning
priorities.
  A very thoughtful...and thought provoking..poem, BARB.

[BarbStAubrey]

Here is a Mary Oliver treat -
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/05/travel/20090705-mary-oliver-audio-ss/index.html

[BarbStAubrey]

And here is a group of chapbooks that each  held a Robert Frost poem - be sure you click the arrow above the photo to see the slide show.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/12/02/books/20091202_frost_ss_index.html?ref=poetry_and_poets

[BarbStAubrey]

One of Seamus Heaney's poems from his new book "Human Chain"

Coal Sack

Not coal dust, more the weighty grounds of coal
The lorryman would lug in open bags
And vent into a corner,

A sullen pile
But soft to the shovel, accommodating
As the clattering coal was not.

In days when life prepared for rainy days
It lay there, slumped and waiting
To dampen down and lengthen out

The fire, a check on mammon
And in its own way
Keeper of the flame.

This isn’t lump coal, the top screening from the mine, but the bottom-deck “slack coal,” the cheap bits and grindings that fall through the other meshes. This refuse coal trims the cost of the fire (hence the mention of the Bible’s Mammon). “Keeper of the flame” is its own droll joke, as if the coal, like the poet, honors the dead.

[Babi]

Barb, what exactly is a chapbook?  I've seen the word somewhere before but I don't
know what it means. I had the vague impression it was a medieval term.
  "Coal Sack" brought to ming a song Tennessee Ernie Ford used to sing. It's long, but it
tells a story.

    SIXTEEN TONS

Some people say a man is made outta mud
A poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said "Well, a-bless my soul"
(chorus)

I was born one mornin', it was drizzlin' rain
Fightin' and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in the canebrake by an ol' mama lion
Cain't no-a high-toned woman make me walk the line
(chorus)

If you see me comin', better step aside
A lotta men didn't, a lotta men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don't a-get you
Then the left one will

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

[BarbStAubrey]

Fun question because it involves history and I love the history of the simple things in life from dyes to cloth to design and books are right  up there.

There is an evolving  way that information was  printed and sold - after the printing press those who could read were not always the wealthy and so if  you  have any knowledge of early music that we still sing in Appalachia and other pockets of Scotch-Irish and English heritage you have heard of Broadsides - these were one up from a scroll using rag [paper made from old cloth or woodfibre] cut broader than long and sold for half a penny or so.

Then came the 'chapbook' which has two influences creating its name - back in the sixteenth century when these booklets first appeared [about 1543] the 'chap' who sold goods would walk the streets saying he was your chap for whatever he was selling which included, tucked in his belt or pockets these small books - they were the rag paper now folded with a simple printed design on the cover or maybe only the name of the author and the title of what the book contained and then another piece of paper folded and cut to create between 4 to maybe 16 pages all sewn in the middle making a slim inexpensive book - this would be one section of a book which is simply a series of groups of pages that are sewn in the  middle and then the groups are lined up and with a gauze like material attached holding together the groups of 8 to 16 pages with a special glue - all of this is attached to a binding that incorporates a hard board cloth cover or a piece of leather.

Anyhow back to our chapbook - the contents had a dubious beginning through most of the early nineteenth century - Thomas Paine and others who did not support the King and Calvin along with a few other new religious leaders who did not support the Pope distributed their essays on chapbooks.  And so off the alters and from the mouths of politicians chapbooks were degraded.

That degradation held on for a long time so that Robert Frost was brave - the degradation was if you were not good enough to be published in a book than your work was not qualified to be discussed and it was simply the gushings of a would-be writer. However, his work was one poem at a time that was illustrated with pen and ink sketches and printed by artists rather than by a large publishing house.

With the advent of the self-publishing industry and small printing houses more chapbooks were published that included the poetry of many who were not recognized by major publishers. Then with the advent of computers, self publishing really took off with covers often no more than construction paper that is not the quality of rag paper but a rougher paper that gives the booklet the look of an old fashioned chapbook.

And talk about Tennessee Ernie Ford - Yes, probably his most famous however, I love this excerpt for his Christmas show years ago with his son Brian - I used to have in color but here is the black and white version - a riot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drYeE1VGR6I

[Tomereader1]

An interesting aside here since you are discussing "chap books":  If  you have read any of Audrey Niffenegger's books, "Time Traveler's Wife" and "Her Fearful Symmetry", you realize that there is something about her writing that you know is "attached" to something in her youth.  I know attached is not the right word, but my brain is not cooperating this morning.  There was the little YouTube or link of some kind that I saw yesterday, telling how she first started writing as a child, making little books, with pictures she drew, etc.  In essence, chap books.  I hope I can think of where I saw that clip, as it was terrifically interesting, and she also told of some of the writers/artists who influenced her work and this is very evident in the subjects of her writing.  Some of you with better "research" skills than I can probably find this clip quickly. 

[Babi]

 Oh, I wish I could hear that video, BARB. I really liked that man and loved his voice.
 And thank you for the history of the chapbooks.

  TOME, I would not be surprised to find that all writers had been at it since childhood. I think
talents like that show themselves early on. Writers can't help scribbling and artists are driven to
sketch and paint, even at a very young age.

 I'm posting this little bit from a Renaissance poet..for no particular reason.

     When to Her Lute Corinna Sings, by Thomas Campion

When to her lute Corinna sings,
Her voice revives the leaden strings,
And doth in highest notes appear
As any challenged echo clear;
But when she doth of mourning speak,
Ev’n with her sighs the strings do break.


And as her lute doth live or die,
Let by her passion, so must I:
For when of pleasure she doth sing,
My thoughts enjoy a sudden spring,
But if she doth of sorrow speak,
Ev’n from my heart the strings do break.

[bellemere]

I have just started a novel by Nicholson Baker, "The Anthologist" , a first person narrative by a once-in-a-while published poet who gets invited to write an introduction to an anthology of great poetry, and is having trouble with his selections. The beginning chapter is his "take" on some aspects of poetr, such as "tetrameter" vs. "pentameter" and he almost lost me. 
But I will perserve until he gets to work on his selections for the anthology.
Meanwhile , here again is my autumn poem committed tomemory years ago and never forgotten.

[bellemere]

Spring and Fall: To a Young Child

 

Márgarét, are you gríeving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leáves, líke the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah!  ás the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you wíll weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It ís the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

[Babi]

 And here's another, from our beloved Lucy Maud Montgomery.  Here's 'darkening druit glens of  fir'

  An Autumn Evening
      by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Dark hills against a hollow crocus sky
Scarfed with its crimson pennons, and below
The dome of sunset long, hushed valleys lie
Cradling the twilight, where the lone winds blow
And wake among the harps of leafless trees
Fantastic runes and mournful melodies.

The chilly purple air is threaded through
With silver from the rising moon afar,
And from a gulf of clear, unfathomed blue
In the southwest glimmers a great gold star
Above the darkening druid glens of fir
Where beckoning boughs and elfin voices stir.

And so I wander through the shadows still,
And look and listen with a rapt delight,
Pausing again and yet again at will
To drink the elusive beauty of the night,
Until my soul is filled, as some deep cup,
That with divine enchantment is brimmed up.

[BarbStAubrey]

Enchanting poems - even the title is a delight "When to Her Lute Corinna Sings" and then Babi you featured just the right line in the Lucy Maud Montgomery Autumn Evening poem - both are poems I had to linger over.

And then any poem committed to memory is such a joy isn't it bellemere - I must say I had not heard of this one - did you learn it in school or just because... an expression my Mom would use if she made something that was not for a certain holiday or occasion - it was 'just because' - and sometimes we memorize things 'just because'...  

I had to look her up because the name was familiar but I could not place Lucy Maud Montgomery - aha the author of Anna of Green Gables - and a  host of other books not as popular - saw one about Golden something I thought Pond but not so and now I forgot but the whole story is available to read on the internet.

Here is another Lucy Maud Montgomery Autumn poem

By an Autumn Fire  
  
Now at our casement the wind is shrilling,
Poignant and keen
And all the great boughs of the pines between
It is harping a lone and hungering strain
To the eldritch weeping of the rain;
And then to the wild, wet valley flying
It is seeking, sighing,
Something lost in the summer olden.
When night was silver and day was golden;
But out on the shore the waves are moaning
With ancient and never fulfilled desire,
And the spirits of all the empty spaces,
Of all the dark and haunted places,
With the rain and the wind on their death-white faces,
Come to the lure of our leaping fire.

But we bar them out with this rose-red splendor
From our blithe domain,
And drown the whimper of wind and rain
With undaunted laughter, echoing long,
Cheery old tale and gay old song;
Ours is the joyance of ripe fruition,
Attained ambition.
Ours is the treasure of tested loving,
Friendship that needs no further proving;

No more of springtime hopes, sweet and uncertain,
Here we have largess of summer in fee­
Pile high the logs till the flame be leaping,
At bay the chill of the autumn keeping,
While pilgrim-wise, we may go a-reaping
In the fairest meadow of memory!
 

[bellemere]

I memorized the Hopkins poem just because my name is Margaret, and so is my mother's, and my grandmother's and my daughter's and my granddaughter's. Seemed to hit a chord.
I have always wanted/not wanted to go to Prince
Edward Island to see the countryside, but I know I would be disappointed.  Nothing could ever match the description of that first ride for Anne when Matthew picked her up at the train station expecting a boy. She was stuck dumb by the beauty, and she was seldom at a loss for words. Dear Anne, wish I could have shared that ride with you.  Bet if I went now therewould be a Walmart or Canadian equivalent on the road.

[roshanarose]

Babi and Barbara - The poetry you have posted of Lucy Maud Montgomery is stunning.  Thanks so much for the introduction.

I did a wee search for Lucy Maud and found this quote from her that I  liked:

"As a rule, I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted."

[BarbStAubrey]

Eleventh Century Irish poem about Autumn from the four season poem -
"The Guesting of Aithirne"

A good tranquil season is autumn,
there is occupation then for everyone
throughout the very short days.

Dappled fawns from the sides of the hinds,
the red stalks of the bracken shelter them;
stags run from the mounds
at the belling of the deer herd.

Sweet acorns in the high woods,
corn-stalks about cornfields
over the expanse of the brown earth.

Prickly thorn bushes of the bramble
by the midst of the ruined court;
the hard ground is covered with heavy fruit.
Hazelnuts of good crop fall
from the huge old trees of mounds.

R[aithe] fō foiss fogomur
feidm and [for cech] ōenduine
la tóeb na llā lāngarit.
Lóig brecca [a broin]d osseilt
Dītnit rūadgaiss raithnigi.
Ret[h]it daim a dumachaib
[f]ri dorddān na damgaire.
Derccain suba a ssithchailtib
Slatta etha imm ithgurtu
Ós īath domuin duind.
Draigin drissi delgnacha
fri tóeb in lāir leithlessi,
lān do mess trom tairnith[ ].
Tuittit cnōi cuill cāinmessa
do robilib rāth.

(Original early Middle Irish edited by Kuno Meyer, English translation by Kenneth Jackson)

[BarbStAubrey]

Harry Clifton's poem:
TAKING THE WATERS

There are taps that flow, all day and all night,
From the depths of Europe,
Inexhaustible, taken for granted,

Slaking our casual thirsts
At a railway station
Heading south, or here in the Abruzzo

Bursting cold from an iron standpipe
While our blind mouths
Suck at essentials, straight from the water table.

Our health is too good, we are not pilgrims.
And the nineteenth century
Led to disaster. Aix, and Baden Baden -

Where are they now, those ladies with the vapours
Sipping at glasses of hydrogen sulphide
Every morning, while the pump-house piano played

And Russian radicals steamed and stewed
For hours in their sulphur tubs
Plugged in to the cathodes of Revolution?

Real cures, for imaginary ailments -
Diocletian's, or Vespasian's.
History passes, only the waters remain,

Bubbling up, through their carbon sheets,
To the other side of catastrophe
Where we drink, at a forgotten source,

Through the old crust of Europe
Centuries deep, restored by a local merchant
Of poultry and greens, inscribing his name in Latin.
 

[bellemere]

I loved the Thomas Campion poem about Corinna's Lute.  A real little jewel.  I think this is another of his; bear with me, I am doing it from memory.

Never love unless you can
Bear with all the faults of man.
Men will sometimes jealous be
Though but little cause they see.
Beauty must be scorned in none
Tho but truly served in one.
Men when their affairs requre,
Must a while themselves retire,
Sometimes hunt, and sometimes hawk,
And not ever sit and talk.
If these and such like you can bear,
Then like,  and love, and never fear

[BarbStAubrey]

Very Good - however, let's get the entire poem so we can enjoy completely the gift you brought to us bellemere.

Never Love Unless
          ~  by Thomas Campion

Never love unless you can
Bear with all the faults of man:
Men sometimes will jealous be
Though but little cause they see;
And hang the head, as discontent,
And speak what straight they will repent.

Men that but one saint adore
Make a show of love to more.
Beauty must be scorned in none,
Though but truly served in one:
For what is courtship but disguise?
True hearts may have dissembling eyes.

Men, when their affairs require,
Must awhile themselves retire;
Sometimes hunt, and sometimes hawk,
And not ever sit and talk.
If these and such-like you can bear,
Then like, and love, and never fear!

[BarbStAubrey]

Here is another of  his poems - he has a lovely way of writing about women doesn't he - many of his poems are centered in his relationship with God which are noble sounding and full of yearning and awe but his poems about women are filled with wonderful words and phrases that fit so easily in our mouths and still are filled with unexpected thoughts and sounds.


LAURA
          ~ by: Thomas Campion (1567?-1619)

ROSE-CHEEK'D Laura, come;
Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty's
Silent music, either other
Sweetly gracing.
  
Lovely forms do flow
From concent divinely framèd:
Heaven is music, and thy beauty's
Birth is heavenly.
  
These dull notes we sing
Discords need for helps to grace them;
Only beauty purely loving
Knows no discord;
  
But still moves delight,
Like clear springs renew'd by flowing,
Ever perfect, ever in them-
selves eternal.

[Babi]

 The second Montgomery autumn poem is every bit as good as the first. I'm going to see
if I can find an inexpensive copy of her poems on the net. I want to read all of them.

  I had to smile, reading the last lines of "Taking the Waters". '..Centuries deep,
restored by a local merchant of poultry and greens, inscribing his name in Latin."
Such a mundane, sly ending to the poem. And the second Campion poem is so true; I'm
surprised a male had such insights.

[fairanna]

A HUGE THANK YOU LADIES I have just spent 30 min reading the poems posted ..The one about the Indians really touched me because I cannot believe how cruel the English were to them  and later immigrants as well Watched a film last night on PBS about the tribe that helped the early English when they first arrived but later arrivals felt it was okay to slaughter them and take thier lands,,,reminds me people have not improved and the poems everyone posted were just so special Barbara the links were great although I could not hear ..so sad because I love sounds and mine are getting fewer as I age...I can remember my mother ...because she could not hear us on the phone or even when we were with her and she missed all the sounds of nature ..the birds, the wind,..  crunching rocks beneath her feet ..since it is genetic that will most likely be me.....sadly I have great nieces and nephews under 20 who are already wearing hearing aids and some just starting school are having problems since they are affected as well My brothers and I did not lose our hearing until we were in our 60's Have a great day  I HAVE TO GET BUSY  BUT____you gave my day a very good start..anna

[BarbStAubrey]

Ghost House
          ~ Robert Frost (1915)

I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
   And left no trace but the cellar walls,
   And a cellar in which the daylight falls,
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.

O’er ruined fences the grape-vines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
   The orchard tree has grown one copse
   Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed.

I dwell with a strangely aching heart
In that vanished abode there far apart
   On that disused and forgotten road
   That has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;

The whippoorwill is coming to shout
And hush and cluck and flutter about:
   I hear him begin far enough away
   Full many a time to say his say
Before he arrives to say it out.

It is under the small, dim, summer star.
I know not who these mute folk are
   Who share the unlit place with me—
   Those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar.

They are tireless folk, but slow and sad,
Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,—
   With none among them that ever sings,
   And yet, in view of how many things,
As sweet companions as might be had.
 

[BarbStAubrey]

Haunted Houses
          ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1858)

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,—

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.
 

[BarbStAubrey]

The Apparition
           ~ John Donne (1633)
 
When by thy scorn, O murd’reuses, I am dead
      And that thou think’st thee free
From all solicitation from me,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
And thee, feign’d vestal, in worse arms shall see;
Then thy sick taper will begin to wink,
And he, whose thou art then, being tir’d before,
Will, if thou stir, or pinch to wake him, think
      Thou call’st for more,
And in false sleep will from thee shrink;
And then, poor aspen wretch, neglected thou
Bath’d in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie
      A verier ghost than I.
What I will say, I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,
I’had rather thou shouldst painfully repent,
Than by my threat’nings rest still innocent.
 

[BarbStAubrey]

The Hag
           ~ Robert Herrick (1648)

    The Hag is astride,
    This night for to ride;
The Devill and shee together:
    Through thick, and through thin,
    Now out, and then in,
Though ne’r so foule be the weather.

    A Thorn or a Burr
    She takes for a Spurre:
With a lash of a Bramble she rides now,
    Through Brakes and through Bryars,
    O’re Ditches, and Mires,
She followes the Spirit that guides now.

    No Beast, for his food,
    Dares now range the wood;
But husht in his laire he lies lurking:
    While mischiefs, by these,
    On Land and on Seas,
At noone of Night are working,

    The storme will arise,
    And trouble the skies;
This night, and more for the wonder,
    The ghost from the Tomb
    Affrighted shall come,
Cal’d out by the clap of the Thunder
 

[Babi]

 I find it comforting to think that when an old place is abandoned, the wild raspberries
burgeon, the woods come back, an orchard tree continues to reproduce, and grass grows
back over the road. We can be so thoughtless about nature, but it continues to outlast
us.

Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

I can't agree with Longfellow on this one. The dead have no interest in their old estates; they have a new estate.

  Let me guess!  Given the current selection, BARB, you have Halloween on your mind.

[BarbStAubrey]

This time of  year the  holidays have me by the heals Babi

Election Day
           ~ by William Carlos Williams, 1939-1962)

Warm sun, quiet air
an old man sits

in the doorway of
a broken house--

boards for windows
plaster falling

from between the stones
and strokes the head

of a spotted dog
 

[BarbStAubrey]

The Approaching Hour
           ~ by William Carlos Williams, (1939-1962)

You Communists and Republicans!
all you Germans and Frenchmen!
you corpses and quickeners!
The stars are about to melt
and fall on you in tears.

Get ready! Get ready!
you Papists and Protestants!
you whores and you virtuous!
The moon will be bread
and drop presently into your baskets.

Friends and those who despise
and detest us!
Adventists and those who believe
nothing!
Get ready for the awakening.
 

[BarbStAubrey]

The Poor Voter on Election Day
           ~ by John Greenleaf Whittier (1852)
 
The proudest now is but my peer,
The highest not more high;
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known
My palace is the people’s hall,
The ballot-box my throne!

Who serves to-day upon the list
Beside the served shall stand;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.

To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man’s common sense
Against the pedant’s pride.
To-day shall simple manhood try
The strength of gold and land
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!

While there’s a grief to seek redress,
Or balance to adjust,
Where weighs our living manhood less
Than Mammon’s vilest dust, —
While there’s a right to need my vote
A wrong to sweep away,
Up! clouted knee and ragged coat!
A man’s a man to-day!
 

[Babi]

 Mr. Williams does show an impartial approach; he chastises everybody. He sounds like
some of the people one might find standing on a box in the park, shouting and stomping.
 Mr Whittier is much more pleasing. "Alike the brown and wrinkled fist, the gloved and
dainty hand!"

 

[BarbStAubrey]

Babi I see both poets being 'right-on' as they speak from their perspective on the process of voting - Reading how every member of Congress within two years of their election are millionaires and many because of their longevity are millionaires many times over I can see that one of the outcomes of this tug of war we call elections is who will be the next millionaire.

I also see once they are in D.C. their business turns to the war fought within the House and Senate and they use whatever the public is upset enough about that it has hit the media as their platform for their in-house tug of war. Therefore, the idea they are elected to represent our views and take care of our needs or wants is a slim maybe. They have other fish to fry. So the lines -

"The moon will be bread
and drop presently into your baskets."

Says it perfectly.

Where as Whittier is focused on the process that makes us all realize in this country we are supposed to be equal. Voting, one man, one Vote is the equalizer. It is the dream of equal opportunity for all that we strive towards. And so all that money and all that vamping by Congressmen to obtain that money to influence the tug of war called elections can determine who will be the next millionaire but also, the very act of voting symbolizes for each of us the concepts that allow us to stand up and if we can get others to stand up and shout and yell as loud as these potential representatives do the weeks before election we can cause enough havoc that they will take our concern and feature it during their next in-house tug of war.

Not a  perfect situation and not as idealistic as we were taught it was supposed to be when we were in school however, it is better than many have it on this world and better than it was before and right after this country won its Independence. Like all power, it can roll over us or we can have a set of laws that allows us to collectively fight back when the power fiddles around with what we see as our rights.

And so with that line of thinking to me the idea of Carpe Diem is crucial to using my time and energy in order to protect ourselves from indifferent power that does not include the needs of the public but rather is all about creating a bigger basket to influence those who will drop the bread into their baskets.

A Psalm of Life
           ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1838)
 
    What the heart of the young man
    Said to the Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
   Life is but an empty dream! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
   And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
   And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
   Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
   Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
   Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
   And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
   Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
   In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
   Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
   Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
   Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
   We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
   Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
   Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
   With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
   Learn to labor and to wait.
 

[BarbStAubrey]

November
          ~ Walter de la Mare

There is wind where the rose was,
Cold rain where sweet grass was,
And clouds like sheep
Stream o'er the steep
Grey skies where the lark was.

Nought warm where your hand was,
Nought gold where your hair was,
But phantom, forlorn,
Beneath the thorn,
Your ghost where your face was.

Cold wind where your voice was,
Tears, tears where my heart was,
And ever with me,
Child, ever with me,
Silence where hope was.

[BarbStAubrey]

Difficult for us who live South or below the Equator to imagine that November means snow in some parts of the country.

November Snow
           ~ by Joseph Pacheco
 
The first to fall is the first to go.
Earth wears its mantle damp and chill —
Patina of November snow.

Leaves raged with fire just days ago —
Now grays, ash browns, pale yellows tell
The first to fall are the first to go.

Remains of harvest in desolate row
Brace for the final winter kill
Beneath their shroud of November snow.

The rakes now dry, the plow and hoe
Await Spring’s promise to fulfill —
The first to fall are the first to go.

Lit by the sky’s anemic glow
The pines are standing stiff and still,
Defiant of November snow.

In barns of silence wait those who know
What lies beneath the fields they till —
The first to fall are the first to go,
Together with November snow.
 

[BarbStAubrey]

I am remembering that Canada celebrates T hanksgiving in October but I do not think I ever heard when Australia celebrates their Thanksgiving. For us it is always the 4th Thursday in November and all ready folks are preparing -

Thanksgiving Feasting
          ~ By Joanna Fuchs

When the Halloween pumpkins are gone,
And the leaves have all fallen to ground,
When the air has turned windy and cold,
Then Thanksgiving will soon be around.

Thoughts of loved ones all feasting together,
Pleasant pictures from past times appear
To dwell in each heart and each mind--
Then Thanksgiving is finally here!

The kitchen has scrumptious aromas,
The dining room looks oh, so fine,
Decorations with pilgrims and turkeys,
And now we are ready to dine!

First the napkins are placed on our laps;
Now the prayer for the meal to be blessed,
Then we stuff the good food in our tummies,
And we hope for it all to digest!