Poetry Page

[Babi]

J.W. Waterhouse Famous Poets and Poems about Spring Link to: Spring Poems Discussion Leaders: Barb & fairanna

Join Us! For a Season of Spring Poetry A Prayer in Spring ~ Robert Frost        Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year. Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white, Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; And make us happy in the happy bees, The swarm dilating round the perfect trees. And make us happy in the darting bird That suddenly above the bees is heard, The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill, And off a blossom in mid air stands still. For this is love and nothing else is love, The which it is reserved for God above To sanctify to what far ends He will, But which it only needs that we fulfil.

[BarbStAubrey]

Oh, my!  That was my exact reaction, too, BARB.  I shall certainly eat my mangos with much
more respect, now. 

 I like this one..despite it's iinclusion of a little historical note.

   "This hill
crossed with broken pines and maples
lumpy with the burial mounds of
uprooted hemlocks (hurricane
of ’38) out of their
rotting hearts generations rise
trying once more to become
the forest

just beyond them 
tall enough to be called trees 
in their youth like aspen a bouquet 
of young beech is gathered

they still wear last summer’s leaves   
the lightest brown almost translucent 
how their stubbornness has decorated   
the winter woods"-  Grace Paley, A Walk in March

[BarbStAubrey]

Babi I mis-counted - it was time for a new heading and I missed it - so I copied and pasted your post in a second space so that it did not have to be tied to the heading but of course  you can see it appears like I wrote the post - but that is only half of it - it looks like you copied and pasted the heading - oh dear - but it is easier to see your post and since you included a poem in your post I really think it needed to receive its space and not be an after thought to the heading.

Interesting that the poem you brought us is from Grace Paley - she is not someone I think of when we say poetry - but then maybe I am mixing her up with the news columnist for the NYTimes.  

I do know about those burial mounds of uprooted trees - a few years ago the east coast had two very bad hurricanes in a row - come to think of it this was before Katrina - how time flies - anyhow, when I drive to my daughter's I often come back  using I-10 which means going south from Atlanta to Mobile Alabama. I forget the Highway number - maybe I-75 - regardless it is just that for miles and miles the trees were blown down - after Montgomery you drive through what was a forest of trees and the hurricane wiped so many out that if they set the wood on fire it could probably be seen in outer space - and so the burial mounds that are still obvious always located in an area that I remeber as having been  a thick forest and is now bare acreage.

Hmm it just occurred to me for the first time - these burial mounds built by native Americans and in Europe by  early tribes - they are huge - and all accomplished by hand - now I wonder how they did it - how long did it take to create a burial mound I wonder.  .

The Burial Mound
          ~ Fiona Colligan-Yano

In my mind, the glowing hump
Becomes illuminated by angry rays
Striking off the stone grey sea.

And for a moment
The discordant gulls
Weave as one with the receding day.

Voices of the long dead
Sweep upwards from the desecrated grave,
To keen with the flowing wind.

And, as eyelids flutter,
People gather in the gloom
And the gestalt sings awhile,
Despite times menstruum.

[BarbStAubrey]

And then we can't forget Lucy's poem about the Pines.

Among the Pines
          ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery

     Here let us linger at will and delightsomely hearken
Music aeolian of wind in the boughs of pine,
Timbrel of falling waters, sounds all soft and sonorous,
Worshipful litanies sung at a bannered shrine.

Deep let us breathe the ripeness and savor of balsam,
Tears that the pines have wept in sorrow sweet,
With its aroma comes beguilement of things forgotten,
Long-past hopes of the years on tip-toeing feet.

Far in the boskiest glen of this wood is a dream and a silence­
Come, we shall claim them ours ere look we long;
A dream that we dreamed and lost, a silence richly hearted,
Deep at its lyric core with the soul of a song.

If there be storm, it will thunder a march in the branches,
So that our feet may keep true time as we go;
If there be rain, it will laugh, it will glisten, and beckon,
Calling to us as a friend all lightly and low.

If it be night, the moonlight will wander winsomely with us,
If it be hour of dawn, all heaven will bloom,
If it be sunset, it's glow will enfold and pursue us.
To the remotest valley of purple gloom.

Lo! the pine wood is a temple where the days meet to worship,
Laying their cark and care for the nonce aside,
God, who made it, keeps it as a witness to Him forever,
Walking in it, as a garden, at eventide.

[BarbStAubrey]

Can't leave out a tribute to the maple - Robert Frost wrote one but it is forever long - here is a shorter poem about the maple - she is not sounding very joyful here however, finding a poem about maples NOT written about its autumn coloring is a trick - this was the best I could find. I wonder what happened in her life for her to write this poem...but then we do have so many kinds of poetry which gives us something to soothe ourselves when we hit a rough patch in our lives.  

Red Maples
          ~ Sara Teasdale

In the last year I have learned
How few men are worth my trust;
I have seen the friend I loved
Struck by death into the dust,
And fears I never knew before
Have knocked and knocked upon my door--
"I shall hope little and ask for less,"
I said, "There is no happiness."

I have grown wise at last--but how
Can I hide the gleam on the willow-bough,
Or keep the fragrance out of the rain
Now that April is here again?
When maples stand in a haze of fire
What can I say to the old desire,
What shall I do with the joy in me
That is born out of agony?

[BarbStAubrey]

Late Spring as Usual
          ~ — Marie Ponsot, poet

The green vine is moving.
The motion's too slow to be
visible but it is racing,
racing feeling for a way
across the wall of fence
it's scrawling on, inches added every day.
Forwarding, sunwarding, it claims
its place. Green states its claim. It writes
the lesson of the day: longing,
longing coming true while arcing
out and up according to the instruction
of desire. Sun-hungry its tip has tilted
toward sun-space. Already
it is speeding leaf-notes out of its root
all along the sprigless budless thread
still scribbling the deed of its location.
In two weeks or one or four
morning                    glory.

[Babi]

 Oh, thanks for explaining, BARB. I was quite dumbfounded, trying to figure out how my
post got posted under your name.

 I do like the Teasdale. She says hoping for nothing is wise, but the fresh rain and the trees and
the joy of spring are making nonsense of her 'wisdom'.

[Octavia]

I really enjoyed Red Maples too. I've never seen a maple, I must look them up. In my suburb there's no visible sign that Autumn is underway, just a hint of crispness in the early morning air, and darkness coming a tad earlier. I'd like to see the seasons change, just once, except I can't stand the cold.
Here's another frog poem from Norman Maccaig, he was very fond of frogs and the natural world.
     Frogs

Frogs sit more solid
than anything sits. In mid-leap they are
parachutists falling
in a free fall. They die on roads
with arms across their chests and
heads high.

I love frogs that sit
like Buddha, that fall without
parachutes, that die
like Italian tenors.

Above all, I love them because,
pursued in water, they never
panic so much that they fail
to make stylish triangles
with their ballet dancer's
legs.

[Octavia]

Norman MacCaig also wrote more serious poems and this is one that quite well known.

Assissi
The dwarf with his hands on backwards
sat, slumped like a half-filled sack
on tiny twisted legs from which
sawdust might run,
outside the three tiers of churches built
in honour of St Francis, brother
of the poor, talker with birds, over whom
he had the advantage
of not being dead yet.

A priest explained
how clever it was of Giotto
to make his frescoes tell stories
that would reveal to the illiterate the goodness
of God and the suffering
of His Son. I understood
the explanation and
the cleverness.

A rush of tourists, clucking contentedly,
fluttered after him as he scattered
the grain of the Word. It was they who had passed
the ruined temple outside, whose eyes
wept pus, whose back was higher
than his head, whose lopsided mouth
said Grazie in a voice as sweet
as a child's when she speaks to her mother
or a bird's when it spoke
to St Francis.

[roshanarose]

A poem with a difference, Octavia.  Vive la difference!

[BarbStAubrey]

I like that "not being dead yet" some days you look around and wonder if you are or not...ah so...

Haven's Falling
          ~ by Valerie, age 15

A haven in the red night
A red knight in the dark
Huddling from haven’s fight
In the sad silence of the lark

The red knight loves her
Captured her in a cave
Her song was his haven
And his soul she saved

But as the days drew long
She slowly built a transparent wall
She wouldn’t sing her song
Wouldn’t sound freedom’s call

For freedom in a cage
Is a sad freedom indeed
The freedom of the lost
When freedom’s all you need

He fought fervently for her
Tried to force out a song
He struggled for a single note
Of the life he had loved so long

But his last haven is falling
The last note is dying
His last heartbeat is stalling
And at last, the lark is flying

[BarbStAubrey]

Shardes of Glass
          ~ by Valerie, age 15

They fell like tears from heaven
And glistened in the grass,
Small speaks of crystal glitter
Floating in the wind,
The shardes of glass did shatter,
Like screeching in the night,
There's more than one way,
To brake a glass house,
Each and every stick and stone,
Struck a silver pain,
And made the slivers of glass fall
Down like Shining rain.

[BarbStAubrey]

Ask No Quarter
          ~ by Bill Turner

Shadows of time are catching up with me
Icy fingers of darkness clutching at my soul
Battles long fought for what is me
Never bartering what is battered
I will leave with it tarnished and tattered

Freedom has never been free
A price is paid by us all
Some pay a heavier toll
We live, we fight, we do what is right
Pushing, defending, fighting off the night

Stalking through life giving no quarter
Knowing that none will be given in the end
It is the warrior way
Stand and deliver, vanquishing evil to the night
When death comes show no fright

Leave the world a better place
Touch someone's heart each day
Defend those who cannot defend themselves
Time is the most precious gift one can give
Give it all to others and truly live

Make someone smile each and every day
Leave your mark upon the lives of others
Never bending on matters of principle
As day slips into the dead of night
I smile, knowing I did it right

[Octavia]

Were the poems all written by Bill Turner, Barbara?
 These poems are lovely to read aloud, especially Shardes of Glass.
"Freedom has never been free", that's very relevant right now. The people of Libya are certainly paying their price.
I just threw my french verbs across the desk, I get so frustrated at times. I'll stop for a bit and remind myself how far I've come. Perhaps a chocolate biscuit will help.
 I find it's often good to put things on the fridge, or the notice board in the kitchen, then the repetition of sight does the job for me.

[BarbStAubrey]

Octavia I found the author - she is a  young 15  year old girl who says she is a Black girl and who wrote both the first two poems I posted tonight.

Interesting  how poetry can be read to fit so many incidents in life - I only read - and I forget the exact wording - but the message was that poetry is not an exact description and the words are vague but together with some un-named whisper they say things to us that a sentence, regardless how well constructed or a melodic tune cannot convey. I agree - there is most often something ethereal about a poem that is magical and there in lies its beauty. Most poems remind me of a single spider thread that we sometimes find stretching across great spaces or detached hanging in the breeze.

Oprah this month has a wonderful collection of pages about poetry, books of poetry, poets, and best of all five poems for going through hard times. Two of the contributers had poems that said so much to me - the one, Kim Rosen,  in October 2008, invested all her savings in a small, local fund. Two months later, the friend who had told her about the fund left her a message: "Bernard Madoff was arrested today. The fund was a fraud. We've lost everything."  Numb, not breathing, grasping the phone the only thing that went through her mind was a line from a poem that before she could call anyone or,  before she could start the long uphill climb out of this darkness she had to go to the computer and find - this poem.

Kindness
          —Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

There are many experiences in our life where the bottom drops out and Kim Rosen goes on with an essay how we can be saved by a poem. She outlines the way to own a poem till we are totally aligned with a poem. She says to choose one poem and repeat it over and over - then say it aloud many times during the day as a mantra or a prayer - then she says - and let me quote - "feel how the phrasing and rhythm of the poem affect the breath and physical pulsations of your body. Read it like a prayer before you go to sleep and upon waking. Notice how it changes the texture of your nights and mornings. Write it out and carry it around in your pocket to read again and again—on the bus or in line at the supermarket. Read it to a friend and watch the connection deepen between you instantly. Notice how those words change the texture of your life, bringing aliveness and passion to every moment."

I am about the business of choosing my poem that will become part of me...

[Babi]

  My word, I never imagined someone could find so many interesting comparisons in writing about
frogs. I am enormoustly entertained at the idea of their dying "like Italian tenors". The
"ruined temple" that was the dwarf is a different, and poignant, image entirely. Thank you,
Octavia.

 "Shardes of Glass" makes me think of the infamous "crystal night' of Jewish persecution in
Germany. On the other hand, Valerie's spelling looks medieval. I would think we will hear more
from this young lady.
 Then, Bill Turner's 'warrior way' is powerful. I do think the last verse was a mistake, tho'.
His message was much more powerful before he ended with a 'the moral of the story is' addendum.

 The Nye poem is wonderful, and also very powerful. The rare times (perhaps 3) that I was able
to write a poem it was always a thing that seemed to come to me all of a piece, out of whatever
inspired it. The only one that was preserved is in the keeping of the parents of the young
woman whose death inspired it.

 Chocolate always helps, Octavia. 

[roshanarose]

Barb - Thanks so much for introducing me to Kim Rosen.  Her words about how to be saved by a poem struck deeply for me.  Her comments reminded me of a beautiful young Greek man called Pavlos (Paul) who was struck down at the age of 30 by an embolism.  He used to wear a sprig of basil behind his ear amongst his wavy black hair and we used to recite Greek poetry to each other.  How I miss him.  Thanks for reminding me of him.

[BarbStAubrey]

Kim Rosen it appears has affected all of us -  Powerful poetry can do that and hurrah for those who include the powerful poetry in their anthologies - 

I was not familiar with Jack Prelutsky but this poem I thought had more to say than the droll bit of fun it appears on the surface.

Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens
           ~ by Jack Prelutsky

Last night I dreamed of chickens,
there were chickens everywhere,
they were standing on my stomach,
they were nesting in my hair,
they were pecking at my pillow,
they were hopping on my head,
they were ruffling up their feathers
as they raced about my bed.

They were on the chairs and tables,
they were on the chandeliers,
they were roosting in the corners,
they were clucking in my ears,
there were chickens, chickens, chickens
for as far as I could see...
when I woke today, I noticed
there were eggs on top of me.

[BarbStAubrey]

I don't think we did this one yet...

The Old Australian Ways
          ~ by Andrew Barton Paterson

The London lights are far abeam
Behind a bank of cloud,
Along the shore the gaslights gleam,
The gale is piping loud;
And down the Channel, groping blind,
We drive her through the haze
Towards the land we left behind --
The good old land of `never mind',
And old Australian ways.

The narrow ways of English folk
Are not for such as we;
They bear the long-accustomed yoke
Of staid conservancy:
But all our roads are new and strange,
And through our blood there runs
The vagabonding love of change
That drove us westward of the range
And westward of the suns.

The city folk go to and fro
Behind a prison's bars,
They never feel the breezes blow
And never see the stars;
They never hear in blossomed trees
The music low and sweet
Of wild birds making melodies,
Nor catch the little laughing breeze
That whispers in the wheat.

Our fathers came of roving stock
That could not fixed abide:
And we have followed field and flock
Since e'er we learnt to ride;
By miner's camp and shearing shed,
In land of heat and drought,
We followed where our fortunes led,
With fortune always on ahead
And always further out.

The wind is in the barley-grass,
The wattles are in bloom;
The breezes greet us as they pass
With honey-sweet perfume;
The parakeets go screaming by
With flash of golden wing,
And from the swamp the wild-ducks cry
Their long-drawn note of revelry,
Rejoicing at the Spring.

So throw the weary pen aside
And let the papers rest,
For we must saddle up and ride
Towards the blue hill's breast;
And we must travel far and fast
Across their rugged maze,
To find the Spring of Youth at last,
And call back from the buried past
The old Australian ways.

When Clancy took the drover's track
In years of long ago,
He drifted to the outer back
Beyond the Overflow;
By rolling plain and rocky shelf,
With stockwhip in his hand,
He reached at last, oh lucky elf,
The Town of Come-and-help-yourself
In Rough-and-ready Land.

And if it be that you would know
The tracks he used to ride,
Then you must saddle up and go
Beyond the Queensland side --
Beyond the reach of rule or law,
To ride the long day through,
In Nature's homestead -- filled with awe
You then might see what Clancy saw
And know what Clancy knew.

[Babi]

    Prelutsky's poem sounds to me more like the thoughts that keep me awake than the
images of my dreams.

And through our blood there runs
The vagabonding love of change
That drove us westward of the range
And westward of the suns.

   This sounds like the same urge that drove our pioneers West.  I am not the first to see
parallels between the settlement of Australia and that of the American West.  I remember people visiting Australia who said it reminded them (whichever part they visited) of Texas.

[roshanarose]

I like the "Banjo" Patterson poem.  Yep.  Australia is vast.  Unlike the US most of the inland has not been settled as cities.

[Tomereader1]

Oh, I love that Paterson poem too.

[Octavia]

I had the great luck to grow up on a very large sheep station, and it was a wonderful life for a child. We spent our free time roaming paddocks, exploring creeks, playing in boredrains, raiding the station store for condensed milk and dried fruit. We grazed on grapes and dates, watermelons and oranges,and anything we could get away with, when the gardener wasn't looking.
Poor man, I feel sorry for him in retrospect.

[roshanarose]

Octavia - You lived my dream.  I grew up in a country town, although strictly speaking it is a city owing to its cathedral.  There was a GPS boys' school there.  I had a b/f who went there and his folks owned a very very large property.  My mother was keen, but I wasn't, so I let Ross and his money go.  I must admit, shallow girl that I was, my fantasy of riding horses all day had something to do with my attractiion to Ross. I read all the "Norah of the Billabong" books and envied her lifestyle as well.  Did you have to go to boarding school?

[BarbStAubrey]

Carrie
          ~ by Ted Kooser,13th Poet Laureate of the United States

"There's never an end to dust
and dusting," my aunt would say
as her rag, like a thunderhead,
scudded across the yellow oak
of her little house. There she lived
seventy years with a ball
of compulsion closed in her fist,
and an elbow that creaked and popped
like a branch in a storm. Now dust
is her hands and dust her heart.
There's never an end to it.

[BarbStAubrey]

Untitled [Each time I go outside]    
          ~ by Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison

Each time I go outside
the world is different.
This has happened all my life.

*

The clock stopped at 5:30
for three months.
Now it's always time to quit work,
have a drink, cook dinner.

*

"What I would do for wisdom,"
I cried out as a young man.
Evidently not much. Or so it seems.
Even on walks I follow the dog.

*

Old friend,   
perhaps we work too hard   
at being remembered.

[Babi]

 I wish an Aunt Carrie lived near me. With all the stuff my daughter has collected mixed
with my stuff, we need a compulsive duster!

 How does one collaborate, I wonder, on a poem?  Especially such a short poem.    Not that
much cannot be said in a few lines.

   A gratitude-heart
Is to discover on earth
A Heaven-delivered rose.
Excerpt from My Sunrise-Heart, Part 1 by Sri Chinmoy

[BarbStAubrey]

Vaguely remembering Babi - Ted Kooser had cancer and was taking a daily walk where he wrote a poem a day and his friend was either a neighbor or maybe a friend who also had cancer - that is what I am unclear about but Ted Kooser was very ill and it was thought he would not make it so the collaboration was his saving grace to getting things on  paper.

[Octavia]

Those poems are lovely Barbara, I'm sure I've read Ted Kooser but I can't bring the poems to mind. For a time I subscribed to that poem a day site by somebody called Garrison? Keillor or something like that?
Roshanarose, I think I read the Norah series. Was she the girl who was out in the bush one night, and was surrounded by dingos that  kept circling, closer and closer.I had a vivid memory of that bit. She had a horse, I remember.
My husband said it was all Biggles when he was young.

Yes I did go to boarding school, two of them. I first went to a convent in Barcaldine, because my sister was already there. I was ten at the time, and used to play on people's sympathy because I was quite young. My mother used to spoil it all, by pointing out that I asked to go, because I was lonely.
Then when I was eleven I went to the Rockhampton Girls Grammar.

[BarbStAubrey]

Octavia it sounds like both you and roshanarose know about living in a sparsely populated land - roshanarose do you still like the idea of living where you are free to ride horses all day?

Octavia, Garrison Keillor is planning to retire this year - he was on the PBS show with Evan Smith that originates from Austin telling us all about how he has found someone to take over his radio show Prairie Home Companion

I like this poem - it has several layers when you consider not letting anything, even a dream lie dormant -

Let Nothing Lie Dormant
          ~ by David Dominguez

At the farmer’s market in Rosarito, Mexico,
a man touched my arm.
He sat on a stool at a wooden table,
and in the center,
a blue pitcher of water beaded under the sun.
Hunkered over his lap,
he worked with a gouge on a block of walnut,
and he blew at the dust,
and the dust swirled in the breeze.

Done stripping the sapwood vulnerable to rot,
the man held the heart of the wood,
a purple wood hard against
the chisel’s cutting edge.
He looked up from his work,
and his gray eyes told me I must listen.
“This wood must be strong
or the heart cracks before the real work is done.
See this?” he asked softly,
and he lifted a mallet carved
from a branch of apple, “Strong wood,” he said.
“It wanted to be more than a tree.”

He rubbed fresh walnut dust between his palms.
We drank glasses of ice water,
talked about life in general,
and he used the pitcher,
billowed and wet like the sail of a boat,
to cool his neck.

Later, through the soft meat of an avocado,
I felt the pit longing to be free.

[BarbStAubrey]

Back a few years ago we spent a month with the poetry of Ted Hughes -

The Horses
          ~ Ted Hughes

I climbed through woods in the hour-before-dawn dark.
Evil air, a frost-making stillness,

Not a leaf, not a bird -
A world cast in frost. I came out above the wood

Where my breath left tortuous statues in the iron light.
But the valleys were draining the darkness

Till the moorline - blackening dregs of the brightening grey -
Halved the sky ahead. And I saw the horses:

Huge in the dense grey - ten together -
Megalith-still. They breathed, making no move,

with draped manes and tilted hind-hooves,
Making no sound.

I passed: not one snorted or jerked its head.
Grey silent fragments

Of a grey silent world.

I listened in emptiness on the moor-ridge.
The curlew's tear turned its edge on the silence.

Slowly detail leafed from the darkness. Then the sun
Orange, red, red erupted

Silently, and splitting to its core tore and flung cloud,
Shook the gulf open, showed blue,

And the big planets hanging -
I turned

Stumbling in the fever of a dream, down towards
The dark woods, from the kindling tops,

And came to the horses.
There, still they stood,
But now steaming and glistening under the flow of light,

Their draped stone manes, their tilted hind-hooves
Stirring under a thaw while all around them

The frost showed its fires. But still they made no sound.
Not one snorted or stamped,

Their hung heads patient as the horizons,
High over valleys in the red levelling rays -

In din of crowded streets, going among the years, the faces,
May I still meet my memory in so lonely a place

Between the streams and the red clouds, hearing the curlews,
Hearing the horizons endure.

[Babi]

"This wood must be strong or the heart cracks before the real work is done."

What a wonderful thought. Isn't that a great encouragement for the times when the
heart is cracking?
  And how vividly Ted Hughes describes his experience. I felt I was with him every step
of the way.

  Octavia, Garrison Keillor is also the author of the Lake Woebegone stories.  If you enjoyed
his site, you might like his books as well.

[BarbStAubrey]

We Are Sisters For Life
          ~ © Lori A. Bitter

We are sisters for life, no matter what you say.
You may not be there everyday, but you’re in my heart.
You make mistakes as do I; you are forgiven as am I
We'll hold through till the death.
I hope when we're old we can look back and laugh.
I'll always be there for you and you can call on me for anything.
Always.
We may get into arguments and fights but no matter what you’re always forgiven.
I may not say it though but I love you always and forever.

[BarbStAubrey]

In Praise of My Sister
          ~  Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel Prize for Poetry in 1996 - 
                            translate. Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

 My sister doesn't write poems,
 and it's unlikely that she'll suddenly start writing poems.
 She takes after her mother, who didn't write poems,
 and also her father, who likewise didn't write poems.
 I feel safe beneath my sister's roof:
 my sister's husband would rather die than write poems.
 And, even though this is starting to sound as
 repetitive as Peter Piper,
 the truth is, none of my relatives write poems.

 My sister's desk drawers don't hold old poems,
 and her handbag doesn't hold new ones.
 When my sister asks me over for lunch,
 I know she doesn't want to read me her poems.
 Her soups are delicious without ulterior motives.
 Her coffee doesn't spill on manuscripts.

 There are many families in which nobody writes poems,
 but once it starts up it's hard to quarantine.
 Sometimes poetry cascades down through the generations,
 creating fatal whirlpools where family love may founder.

 My sister has tackled oral prose with some success,
 but her entire written opus consists of postcards from vacations
 whose text is only the same promise every year:
 when she gets back, she'll have
 so much
 much
 much to tell.

 

[BarbStAubrey]

Spring Wind in London
          ~ by Katherine Mansfield

I Blow across the stagnant world,
I blow across the sea,
For me, the sailor's flag unfurled,
For me, the uprooted tree.
My challenge to the world is hurled;
The world must bow to me.

I drive the clouds across the sky,
I huddle them like sheep;
Merciless shepherd-dog am I
And shepherd-watch I keep.
If in the quiet vales they lie
I blow them up the steep.

Lo! In the tree-tops do I hide,
In every living thing;
On the moon's yellow wings I glide,
On the wild rose I swing;
On the sea-horse's back I ride,
And what then do I bring?

And when a little child is ill
I pause, and with my hand
I wave the window curtain's frill
That he may understand
Outside the wind is blowing still;
...It is a pleasant land.

O stranger in a foreign place,
See what I bring to you.
This rain--is tears upon your face;
I tell you--tell you true
I came from that forgotten place
Where once the wattle grew,--

All the wild sweetness of the flower
Tangled against the wall.
It was that magic, silent hour....
The branches grew so tall
They twined themselves into a bower.
The sun shown... and the fall

Of yellow blossom on the grass!
You feel that golden rain?
Both of you could not hold, alas,
(both of you tried, in vain)
A memory, stranger. So I pass....
It will not come again

[BarbStAubrey]

We may have included this poem by George MacDonald in an earlier post or maybe it was last year at this time - however with the wind blowing as it did today it was too perfect a poem.

The Wind and the Moon
          ~ by George MacDonald

Said the Wind to the Moon, "I will blow you out.
You stare in the air
Like a ghost in a chair,
Always looking what I am about.
I hate to be watched; I will blow you out."

The Wind blew hard, and out went the Moon.
So, deep on a heap
Of clouds, to sleep
Down lay the Wind, and slumbered soon--
Muttering low. "I've done for that Moon."

He turned in his bed; she was there again.
On high in the sky,
With her one ghost eye,
The Moon shone white and alive and plain.
Said the Wind, "I will blow you out again."

The Wind blew hard, and the Moon grew dim.
"With my sledge and my wedge
I have knocked off her edge.
If only I blow right fierce and grim,
The creature will soon be dimmer than dim."

He blew and he blew, and she thinned to a thread.
"One puff more's enough
To blow her to snuff!
One good puff more where the last was bred,
And glimmer, glimmer glum will go the thread."

He blew a great blast, and the thread was gone;
In the air nowhere
Was a moonbeam bare;
Far off and harmless the shy stars shone;
Sure and certain the Moon was gone!

The Wind he took to his revels once more:
On down, in town,
Like a merry-mad clown,
He leaped and hallooed with whistle and roar--
"What's that?" The glimmering thread once more.

He flew in a rage--he danced and blew;
But in vain was the pain
Of his bursting brain;
For still the broader the moon-scrap grew,
The broader he swelled his big cheeks and blew.

Slowly she grew--till she filled the night,
And shone on her throne
In the sky alone,
A matchless, wonderful, silvery light,
Radiant and lovely, the queen of the night.

Said the Wind: "What a marvel of power am I
With my breath, good faith,
I blew her to death--
First blew her away right out of the sky--
Then blew her in; what a strength am I!"

But the Moon she knew nothing about the affair,
For, high in the sky,
With her one white eye,
Motionless, miles above the air,
She had never heard the great Wind blare.

[BarbStAubrey]

I will be leaving Wednesday morning before Dawn to take care of my sister after her surgery - I will be back April 15, a little more than a week from now - please enjoy poetry and share the poems that you find - If I can take a minute to pop in while I am gone I will - but frankly I doubt it - my sister is going to need all my attention - she is alone - her surgery is scheduled for Thursday.

I will be posting a few more poems unless  y'all come along and post a few - In only 3 more posts a new page starts - I am anxious to get a new heading up before I leave so y'all will be set while I'm gone. And so I will be updating us during the day tomorrow. I guess it is already tomorrow - well...you know what I mean.

[Octavia]

Go safely, Barbara, and take care.
I enjoyed the wind poems and the pictures they evoke.
"Huddle them like sheep", that's so accurate. At an earlier stage of my Mum's alzheimers, she was obsessed with clouds, and I spent a fair bit of time with her, studying the skies. I enjoyed it a lot, as soon as I learnt to be still and not fret about what I could be doing.
She's over clouds now, unfortunately.

Nobody in my family reads poetry, except for me .It's a pity, because if I'm busting to tell someone, about a poet I've found and love, there's no one to share it with.
My Dad used to read it, or perhaps he remembered from his school days. He used to quote Robbie Burns and CJ Dennis.
"A son to bear me name when I am gone". My sister and I were racked with guilt.

[BarbStAubrey]

Thanks Octavia - I know it is not the same sharing online as having a close friend or family member to share with -  I know what you mean though - neither of my sisters nor my children read or want to hear poetry - my daughter is polite but she is not into literature either - and even my best friend will tolorate poetry - but she has just a meager few she appreciates and that is all - oh I can share and she is polite and then brings up how it reminds her of Dickinson - what can you say - ah so -

I have decided that a poem is as close as anything to a prayer - some folks pray prayers written hundreds of  years ago and then some of  us read poetry - either hundreds of years old or written yesterday.

So glad you join us - it is nice to read posts from those who see the wisdom and enjoy the music of a poem.

[BarbStAubrey]

Well here it is and I can then start the next page...

Liu Yung
          ~ Billy Collins

This poet of the Sung dynasty is so miserable.
The wind sighs around the trees,
a single swan passes overhead,
and he is alone on the water in his skiff.

If only he appreciated life
in eleventh-century China as much as I do —
no loud cartoons on television,
no music from the ice cream truck,

just the calls of elated birds
and the steady flow of the water clock.