Poetry Page

[BarbStAubrey]

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Our haven for those who listen to words that open our heart, imagination, and our feelings about the poems we share.
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“Haymaking” Thomas English (1819-1902) “Their homage men pay to the mowing machine Which does all the work of a dozen as one, And, cutting a passageway smoothly and keen, Keeps steadily on till its labor is done; But I like to remember the primitive way When I joined with my fellows to gather the hay, And labor was pleasantly tempered by play. A wonderful thing is your mowing machine, That sweeps o'er the meadow in merciless way; But I sigh for the scythe, curved and tempered and keen, And the labor and joy of the earlier day; I sigh for the toil that was mingled with fun, The contentment we felt when the end had been won, And the sound, peaceful slumber when daylight was done.”

The Hayfield  ~ by Ford Madox Brown

Poems and an articles on Haying

• Haymaking By Edward Thomas
  
• Hay in Art
• Here We Come a-Haying

Discussion Leader: BarbStAubrey

[hats]

In this poem, the poet, Thomas English, seems to long for the earlier or "primitive" days. He talks about using the scythe. I've seen this word or read it many times. I don't know if it's in Bibles or Prayer books. Farming comes to mind. Then, there is less hard work with the lawn mowers. It was the time when we were not ashamed of doing hard work. I've met a couple of gardeners in my life. I think of shoveling and weeding as hard work. I could tell that the work brought these men joy and friends. People like to walk pass and talk about the beauty of a rose or a coleus. At first, I didn't care for this poem. I've never thought much about hay. I've never been around hay. I've passed it in cars on our travels. Now, after about four readings, I really like the poem.  I'm glad you picked it, Barb.

[BarbStAubrey]

Yes, hats there are fewer and fewer of us that remember when hard physical work was normal - when we cooked our own meals and repaired our homes and maintained a garden some competing over the largest flower or vegetable. Then all this garden bounty was preserved in hot kitchens and stopping for more fresh produce at a roadside stand was usual.

The day and months had a rhythm - so many of the jobs involved more than one person so there was banter and laughing along with the serious solving of unexpected happenings - not quite problems because there was always a way.

Reading several of the poems about haying it appears to have been a large community effort that involved the children and older boys and girls working, each with their age appropriate tasks - a huge seasonal event of hard work and skill using the tools that for a thousand years or more were used to cut hay - For these older boys and girls it was a time of flirting with many a couple developing the beginnings of a long life together.

In our generation I can remember first dates were going to the movies or a football game where we watched rather than making a day of work into a social event - now so few do physical work and how the youth of today experience their dating I have no clue. They do not seem to flirt - they only talk on their Iphone.

[BarbStAubrey]

We saw the last embers of daylight die And in the trembling blue-green of the sky A moon, worn as if it had been a shell Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell About the stars and broke in days and years W.B.Yeats

[BarbStAubrey]

To a Mouse By Robert Burns On Turning up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785 Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty,           Wi’ bickerin brattle! I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee           Wi’ murd’ring pattle! I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion Has broken Nature’s social union, An’ justifies that ill opinion,           Which makes thee startle, At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,           An’ fellow-mortal! I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen-icker in a thrave           ’S a sma’ request: I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,           An’ never miss ’t! Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin! It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin! An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,           O’ foggage green! An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,           Baith snell an’ keen! Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste, An’ weary Winter comin fast, An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,           Thou thought to dwell, Till crash! the cruel coulter past           Out thro’ thy cell. That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble Has cost thee monie a weary nibble! Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,           But house or hald, To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,           An’ cranreuch cauld! But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men           Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,           For promis’d joy! Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me! The present only toucheth thee: But Och! I backward cast my e’e,           On prospects drear! An’ forward tho’ I canna see,           I guess an’ fear!

[BarbStAubrey]

The Wild Swans at Colle Yeats 'The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry, Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky; Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine-and-fifty swans. The nineteenth autumn has come upon me Since I first made my count; I saw, before I had well finished, All suddenly mount And scatter wheeling in great broken rings Upon their clamorous wings. I have looked upon those brilliant creatures, And now my heart is sore. All's changed since I, hearing at twilight, The first time on this shore, The bell-beat of their wings above my head, Trod with a lighter tread.   Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold Companionable streams or climb the air; Their hearts have not grown old; Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still. But now they drift on the still water, Mysterious, beautiful; Among what rushes will they build, By what lake's edge or pool Delight men's eyes when I awake some day To find they have flown away?

[hats]

Autumn is my most favorite season. With your poem I feel more anxious for its arrival. I am beginning to like swans more than ever. I've taken their beauty for granted in the past. Fifty-nine is mentioned in the poem. I will need to reread Yeats poem again. Then, I will know whether he is writing about other birds or a man or what. I haven't been up long. My thoughts are all out of order. Yes, I've read this poem at other times. The word "clamorous" is used. I think of many birds flying across the sky in the autumn. I have seen a hoard of birds fly together more than once. They would fly over the house we lived in years ago. Beautiful.

[BarbStAubrey]

hats the poem takes on more meaning for me after I looked up the word heaning versus hearing - hearing at twilight I have seen written as heaning in twilight which some folks think is a typo and rewrite it as hearing, since the word heaning is seldom used anymore - but looking it up I like the meaning which goes to the heart of the time of day and the affect to our spirit at the time of day. Evidently both sunrise and sunsets can be described as heaning.

Hean is from Middle English henen, from Old English hīenan (“to fell, prostrate, overcome, weaken, crush, afflict, injure, oppress, abase, humble, insult, accuse, condemn”)

Last week I noted a change - although our temperatures are as high as they have been all summer - yesterday it was 104 there is a change I notice in the color of the sunlight and the sounds in the air - I notice the deer are eating leaves now rather than grass and some of the small birds are flocking - the humming birds are gone - there was information yesterday that we are in for a colder winter and so these changes I am seeing and hearing may be the signal.

[hats]

Barb, I would come to hear you describe only the seasons. You're very observant. In discussions,  I've noticed this trait for a long time. I think seasons are so important and not to go unnoticed. The painting with the poem is beautiful. The golden leaves and the six swans are restful to the eyes. Are there six swans in the painting? I counted six. I don't think swans fly very high up. I've never heard the sound of their clamorous wings. Thinking about it, I know very little about swans. I do know there are black swans. One day I read about them. Shocked! To me, the white swans are the pretty ones. Growing up we went to the zoo often, I can't remember seeing swans there. Fifty-nine seems like a bunch. Where would a person see so many together? In this place named Colle?
Thank goodness you mentioned heaning, hearing. If I put the word heaning in the poem instead of hearing, will the meaning change?
Your definitions lean toward the heavy side: afflict, oppress, cursh, etc.

[BarbStAubrey]

By changing the wording to heaning I feel the sense of oppression that fall represents - in all its display of color it is the end even as he has to suggest their hearts have not grown old - an old heart would be appropriate to a near ending but he says their hearts are not old and therefore he himself is taking flight as the birds take flight from the oppressing crushing realization that fall is only a prelude to winter that is death to so much.

to me heaning is showing the opposite so deeply of the melancholy of autumn that keeps us humble as we see year after year the beauty of nature that is the lead up to the coming death symbolized by winter. 

[BarbStAubrey]

Harvest Of Friendship by David Harris For Carol Gall & Patti Masterman Friendships can come from many places near and far, sometimes even half a world away with faces we cannot see, but their touch we can always feel. Invisible hands reach out across the miles to gently touch another’s. Unbreakable links are forged, bonds never to be unbroken. Silent voices of strangers are suddenly heard, welcomed in from the silence to a voice never heard. Strength is gathered in to defeat the demons of a sometimes lonely life as we harvest friendships into our lives. Friendships and distance no longer matters. Hands now link to chain a message that no matter who we are a candle of hope is on the horizon to light up many lives.

[BarbStAubrey]

This strangely still pause between summer and autumn, greenery and gold, and the heat and rising wind that is once again readying itself to rush it all away in a climactic symphony of colour and scent is ~ in my opinion, one of the best parts of living on Earth. by Victoria Erickson

[BarbStAubrey]

Our Daily Bread  by Robert William Service Give me my daily bread. It seems so odd, When all is done and said, This plea to God. To pray for cake might be The thing to do; But bread, it seems to me, Is just our due. "Give me my daily toil," I ought to say - (If from life's cursed coil I'd time to pray.) Give me my daily sweat, My body sore, So that bread I may get To toil for more. "Give me my daily breath," Through half a sob, Until untimely death Shall end my job. A crust for my award, I cry in dread: "Grant unto me. Oh Lord, My daily bread!"

[BarbStAubrey]

[BarbStAubrey]

Grasses Do you love the humble grasses? Such grasses as we see By the wayside in the meadow, growing profuse and free. Nourished by dew and sunshine, and genial summer rain; And waving in the Autumn, Among the fields of grain. And in the bright clear Autumn, When their various colored seeds, Give the warmth of sunset shadows, To the stubble fields and meads. Go out beneath the sunshine, Examine blade and stem; Observe them how they thrive and grow, "Where no man planted them."

Wild Grass and Birds raiding the Millet and Sorghum fields

[Frybabe]

Barb, what a strange poem "Living in a Simulation" is. Hard to make sense of it, but the title, now the title reminds me of my journeys into the post-human world of the future where you upload your memories and all to a computer and continue living in the digital world after your living body fails.
There is some speculation that we are all living in a simulation now. So, does that make God a game enthusiast playing a universe building game? Now that thought seems a bit degrading somehow. 

[BarbStAubrey]

Frybabe, I see many folks living now in simulation - everything they know and experience comes from their cell phone - their entire day seems to be glued to the screen so that, walking in a park or across the front lawn and actually seeing the birds and leaves is not their reality down to many intimate moments in life also seemed to be shared on the screen.

And then there are more folks who only know of harvests and fields of grain by what they can buy at the farmers markets - they have never seen fields of grain or flocks of birds descending into a field of sorghum - they have never seen grain made into flour or even seen bread made. And so with all the folks living in the suburbs trying to be aware and live in nature, their life is still a simulation of the life they admire on the farm or as it was before technology.

Then, as you say it can be taken a step further with scientists having proven there are at least 9 and probably 10 dimensions - so what, as you question, does that do about the common views on God - I gave that issue a lot of thought and if God is the 'All' then the only problem I can see is differentiating what is a personal God and what is the power that we call God. 

Have you ever really looked into how consciousness and memory came to be - neither are a 'thing' like the body that we can track through evolution from the hot lava of the earths' beginning but consciousness and memory seem to be part of the function of the brain and the brain has evolved but then not every brain has consciousness based on decision making and creative thinking - most do have memory - again we seem to have relegated memory and decision making and even creativity to the computer so that these functions are a simulation of organic physical life assuming consciousness is part of physical life.

It is this time of year that the loss of actually connecting with the basics of nature overwhelm me - I look at all the children in the grocery and remember my own grandson who was shocked at about age 4 to pick a peach off my tree never realizing peaches grew on trees instead of in a pile at the grocery store. How many other children have never picked a peach off a tree and eaten that fresh juicy goodness or rubbed a handful of millet against itself and mixed it with fresh corn cut from a cob, letting them dry together on the backporch and later after toasted in the oven, cooked in a pot of sweet milk.     

As life became easier and technology and machines took over we have lost the direct contact with nature and even hiking or gardening is a pseudo relationship - but now, we have a generation coming along that do not even hike or garden - even their dream-world seems to be an app - I sure hope it all comes clean in the wash but my thinking is just as we teach kids not to play or walk in the street we would be doing them a favor if we also had a time limit on their use of electronics - we are allowing a simulated life of a perfect world - even game warfare the looser is not inflicted with real losses in body or spirit. 

[Frybabe]

You are right, Barb, there is a dangerous disconnect from losing direct contact with nature and oter human beings. It didn't start with all these electronic gadgets, however. From time to time I have run across fighter pilots who have been a bit disturbed that dropping bombs from a plane has disconnected them from the horrific aftermath to human life on the ground. Now, think of the drone pilots sitting at a console hundreds or thousands of miles away. That seems even worse.

Oh, and now there is Virtual Reality. Even my sister wants to get one of those VR glasses so she can armchair travel without leaving home. Not the same as being there, but a lot less expensive and a lot easier on arthritic joints and other problems that limit travel.

Ah, just ran across an Ogden Nash:

The Middle

When I remember bygone days
I think how evening follows morn;
So many I loved were not yet dead,
So many I love were not yet born.

[BarbStAubrey]

This painting needs a poem - if this is an example of the Middle between morning and dark than here I would love to rest and contemplate

The Lily Pond By Verna Sheard ON this little pool where the sunbeams lie, This tawny gold ring where the shadows die, God doth enamel the blue of His sky. Through the scented dark when the night wind sighs, He mirrors His stars where the ripples rise, Till they glitter like prisoned fireflies. 'Tis here that the beryl-green leaves uncurl, And here the lilies uplift and unfurl Their golden-lined goblets of carven pearl. When the grey of the eastern sky turns pink, Through the silver edge at the pond's low brink The little lone field-mouse creeps down to drink. And creatures to whom only God is kind, The loveless small things, the slow, and the blind, Soft steal through the rushes, and comfort find. Oh, restless the river, restless the sea, Where the great ships go, and the dead men be! The lily-pond giveth but peace to me.

[hats]

Good morning, Barb and Frybabe.

There is so much life around one pond. I liked reading about the tiny creatures in this poem. I will think about the helpless ones today. All of these "creatures great and small" are made for our pleasure. I've never seen this poet's name. Would like to read more of her poems. Your poem is good for thought too, Frybabe.

[BarbStAubrey]

Nationalism by Brian Swann At first, I wanted to be English. I didn’t have much choice. The war just over, we sang: “The English, the English, the English are best. / I wouldn’t give tuppence for all of the rest.” But everybody was English, so, since we lived near the border and because my favorite Uncle Len had a Scottish name that qualified me to wear the hunting Stuart tartan and a kilt, I wanted to be Scottish. Then, on a family holiday in a caravan on the Norfolk coast I fell for two Welsh girls both named Jones though unrelated. I was fourteen, they seventeen. I bought myself Teach Yourself Welsh and decided to be Welsh until I made the decision to return to my roots when I discovered that my father’s father’s mother was one Alice O’Neill who left Cork for England and was widowed at 23 with three young children. The romance of this made me want to be Irish, so I read every Irish myth and legend I could get my hands on, running home each Wednesday at recess to listen to the BBC Northern Ireland Light Orchestra play jigs and reels. So how did I decide to be Jewish? With nothing better to do one summer, I booked a seat on a flight organized by the university’s Adventurers’ Club. When it was canceled all that was left was a flight to Israel, which I thought was in the Bible until I got there, where I worked on kibbutz Yad Mordechai, and was fed yogurt and Zionism. I rode shotgun on a tractor and fell for a sabra. I was Jewish until back in England my Palestinian friend Yael killed by Mossad in a case of mistaken identity which made me think I should be Arab or, later, Italian or Mexican, or just plain nothing. Which was how on January 9, 1980, I swore allegiance to the United States, becoming No. 108466898 and A13 834 018.

[BarbStAubrey]

Are American's nothing? - my take is American's are everything all combined - maybe not the proverbial soup but for sure a stew.

[Frybabe]

I think it means America is a blend of many nationalities. We take in from most (no longer all) countries and add them to the blender. In addition, it could further mean because the character (him? or someone he knows?) couldn't make up his mind, American became the best choice. I looked him up. He is contemporary. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/brian-swann Notice that he has edited several volumes of Native American literature.

[BarbStAubrey]

Thanks Frybabe - I did not know he translated native songs, poems and literature - found one of his books that is a collection of stories from many native nations and I'm ordering a copy - just the intro that goes on for pages has so much information - I did not know there was at least a 1000 languages spoken before the arrival of the white man. Some of the native author names I recognize and many are new to me -

[BarbStAubrey]

Give me songs     to sing     and emerald dreams     to dream      and I’ll give you love     unfolding           by Jim Morrison

[BarbStAubrey]

Wm Wordsworth

[BarbStAubrey]

The Last Rose of Summer             Thomas Moore (1779–1852)   ’TIS the last rose of summer      Left blooming alone;    All her lovely companions      Are faded and gone;    No flower of her kindred,             No rosebud is nigh,    To reflect back her blushes,      To give sigh for sigh.      I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one!      To pine on the stem;           Since the lovely are sleeping,      Go, sleep thou with them.    Thus kindly I scatter      Thy leaves o’er the bed,    Where thy mates of the garden             Lie scentless and dead.      So soon may I follow,      When friendships decay,    And from Love’s shining circle      The gems drop away.           When true hearts lie withered      And fond ones are flown,    Oh! who would inhabit      This bleak world alone?

[Tomereader1]

And that poem is also a gorgeous song.  A tenor, soprano, or boy soprano can do it so well!

[BarbStAubrey]

here you go Tomereader - a Celtic Woman soprano - quote beautiful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj3c52hg2sE

[Tomereader1]

Thank you, Barb!  Loved that.

[BarbStAubrey]

September by English poet and novelist Jean Ingelow (1820-1897). Illustrated by Edith Holden-from ‘The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady’.

[hats]

Barb and Tomereader, thank you for the beautiful poem and the song. I really love the poem about the last rose.

[BarbStAubrey]

Out in the orchard, before the first apple placed gently in the bag, snap of the McIntosh to my bite, sweet fragrance, taste of Fall, cascade of memory in the first bite. Red ripe fruit yielding to my grasp Thick heavy branches, like bunches of grapes A full bag, alright two, in a matter of moments Apples for a month, on their way home

[nlhome]

Yes. Apples are fall.

[BarbStAubrey]

Walk on water. Walk on a leaf. Hardest of all is walking grief

[BarbStAubrey]

The Stolen Child       W.B. Yeats Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And anxious in its sleep. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

[hats]

When I bite down on an apple in October and November, I am reminded autumn is still with us. It's that special time before winter. Colors become brighter. Smells call for a sniff. Haven't been out much this fall. Not too late. Fall is not gone yet. In my head, I'm thinking of a new pair of boots for December. I tell my mind to stay here and stay still. Don't rush the cold days of winter with ice and snow and maybe cabin fever.

[BarbStAubrey]

I've noticed that hats - this year folks seem to be rushing through autumn and focusing on the start of winter and the Christmas holidays - I'm missing the interest in slowing down and breathing in while admiring the colors of autumn - I think I need to find some more photos and poems about autumn so we can fill ourselves with the season.

[BarbStAubrey]

Autumn By John Keats Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,    Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless    With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,    And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;       To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease,       For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?    Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,    Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,    Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook       Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep    Steady thy laden head across a brook;    Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,       Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?    Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,    And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn    Among the river sallows, borne aloft       Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;    Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft    The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;       And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

[BarbStAubrey]

 
The Autumn
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound.
The summer sun is faint on them —
The summer flowers depart —
Sit still — as all transform’d to stone,
Except your musing heart.

How there you sat in summer-time,
May yet be in your mind;
And how you heard the green woods sing
Beneath the freshening wind.
Though the same wind now blows around,
You would its blast recall;
For every breath that stirs the trees,
Doth cause a leaf to fall.

Oh! like that wind, is all the mirth
That flesh and dust impart:
We cannot bear its visitings,
When change is on the heart.
Gay words and jests may make us smile,
When Sorrow is asleep;
But other things must make us smile,
When Sorrow bids us weep!

The dearest hands that clasp our hands, —
Their presence may be o’er;
The dearest voice that meets our ear,
That tone may come no more!
Youth fades; and then, the joys of youth,
Which once refresh’d our mind,
Shall come — as, on those sighing woods,
The chilling autumn wind.

Hear not the wind — view not the woods;
Look out o’er vale and hill-
In spring, the sky encircled them —
The sky is round them still.
Come autumn’s scathe — come winter’s cold —
Come change — and human fate!
Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound,
Can ne’er be desolate.