Poetry Page

[BarbStAubrey]

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To Autumn 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.

Poetry Links

• Famous Poets and Poems about Autumn
• Fall Poetry
• Poems for Autumn

Discussion Leaders: BarbStAubrey

[BarbStAubrey]

Whew - not usual to post that many poems however if I only did 3 or so then the conversation could have started and the heading would be missed again or included on the top of someone's post which really does in my opinion dilute their thoughts - and so poems about handwork filled the last 7 posts - I did enjoy finding them - hope you enjoy reading them.

[BarbStAubrey]

Southwell Leaves Amidst the tympanum His stone hair startles from A face in the foliage. Not just the bearded barleycorn But a whole field springing, The vine and all its tendrils, Unfold from the face, Trip from the tongue That speaks the Word Amidst the tympanum. But by the rood-screen here, His face is set like flint, The Word unheard, He gives his back to the smiters His cheeks to them that pluck out the hair, His spring is come to shame and spitting, Under the blows the cut stones splinter The Green Man comes to winter, To the harness and the harrow As flails fall to split the bearded husk And seeds fall to the furrow, Amidst the tympanum, Hard by the rood-screen here.

Southwell Leaves

[Frybabe]

Barb, I like the Keats poem very much, but what got me started is Southwell Leaves. Now I am on a quest to find more Green Man poems. All Poetry has one by John Curtis that I like. https://allpoetry.com/poem/11204395-The-Green-Man-by-John-Curtis#:~:text=%20The%20Green%20Man%20As%20a%20boy%20I,Dappled%20leaves.%20I%20sometimes%20spied%20his%20leaf-bound%20face

I took a very quick look at The Green Man as myth and discovered that the name came from Lady Raglan in 1939. So, all the references and stories about The Green Man are modern interpretations/inventions even though the church carvings etc. are much older? Now I am going to have to go back to Celtic folklore to find the earliest instances of writings and representations, not to mention Roman accounts, of him. I need to pull a couple of my dusty old art books to check, but I think I remember seeing carvings in European cathedrals as wells as those in the UK. I also read an article that considered the Green Man may be a reference to Bacchus.

[BarbStAubrey]

Can't find it now but I only read that some make an association with the Green Man and the giant, Green Knight in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

This is a nice video about the Green Man with several carvings in various UK locations.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190104-the-surprising-roots-of-the-mysterious-green-man

Here is the carving of the Green Man in St. Stephen’s Church in the Welsh town of Old Radnor. Interesting information about St. Stephen's that goes further back to the Celtic church that burned down and was replaced in the 15th and early 16th century https://hisdoryan.co.uk/st-stephens-church-old-radnor

[BarbStAubrey]

Here I lay in lonely desolation For here I pause to wait For death comes slowly Yet I fear not my fate Of summers golden and pure I recall my past glories And of victories all so sure Veterans march proudly Past the stand, People cheer and shout, On plays the band. And as our country calls, For men to bear arms, We call upon many men and  boys, From cities, towns and farms. Towards the gory battlefields they march wielding the frightful weapons of war longing all the while for home and hearth and when the fighting is done they bury their dead and when  gazing to the horizon afar and wonder if next they be put to rest  in that cold and unfamiliar ground let us not forget, This day we pray, For without the veteran, Liberty, life and happiness is in harm's way. by Gillis Bartles

[PatH]

Barb, I'm kind of glad you had to find poems for a fill-in, because I enjoyed them so much.  They were nice individually, and the mood kind of flowed on a path, advancing from one to another.

I especially enjoyed The Blacksmiths.  That old verse form appeals to me, and with the translations of the less cognate words, with a bit of work I could sort of read it in the original, and get the full flavor of the rude power of the old Anglo Saxon verse.

Thanks.

[BarbStAubrey]

Yes, I too thought the old Blacksmith poem was fascinating - you could almost hear the sounds and heat of a smithy - had no idea they were thought to be story tellers or bring magic - My great grandfather was a Blacksmith during the Civil War - someone paid him to fight for them instead - his big coup was being made a citizen after the war - he was from Germany, although the area he was from was near Alcese which is south from the Saxon strongholds, I can hear in the poem that strong, hard, rough, way of so many of the early German immigrants. 

[BarbStAubrey]

Autumn Mist Ryan Sheeler Like the autumn goes…so it seems I wonder how the leaves know When to fall and drift away Losing a loved one, is like that Sometimes you know it’s coming And sometimes it’s here and gone As the heart is the one left to grieve Wondering where and why it feels so empty now Love is fleeting, love divine So the writers say, but still I wonder Why love has to hurt so much? Is it because true love costs so much But gives ever more? Or is it because of our old wounds That we carry through our lives Like a trunk of old photos and memories we never want to keep But somehow can’t throw away Maybe the only way to really love Is to really love, to give away More than just a feeling, and more than Just a greeting card, maybe Love is something we’re born with But are afraid to use When at last we find love in the losing Rushing through a side door. Perhaps it was waiting for us, in some sweet and sad disguise Or maybe it comes upon a soul Like an autumn mist

[BarbStAubrey]

[BarbStAubrey]

Everything by Paul Kidd Hewitt In the middle of this infinite black sea, Amongst millions of blazing stars, Hanging delicately by a golden thread, You and I are here, And that is everything.

[BarbStAubrey]

Thanks W. S. Merwin - 1927-2019 Listen with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you we are standing by the water thanking it standing by the windows looking out in our directions back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging after funerals we are saying thank you after the news of the dead whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you over telephones we are saying thank you in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators remembering wars and the police at the door and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you in the banks we are saying thank you in the faces of the officials and the rich and of all who will never change we go on saying thank you thank you with the animals dying around us our lost feelings we are saying thank you with the forests falling faster than the minutes of our lives we are saying thank you with the words going out like cells of a brain with the cities growing over us we are saying thank you faster and faster with nobody listening we are saying thank you we are saying thank you and waving dark though it is

[BarbStAubrey]

Perhaps the World Ends Here Joy Harjo - 1951- The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live. The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on. We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it. It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women. At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers. Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table. This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun. Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory. We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here. At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks. Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

[KathyB]

Wonderful poem!

[BarbStAubrey]

Glad you like it Kathy -

[BarbStAubrey]

“Buddha in Glory” Rainer Maria Rilke The core of every core, the kernel of every kernel, an almond! held in itself, deepening in sweetness: all of this, everything, right up to the stars is the meat around your stone. Accept my bow. O yes, you feel it, how the weights on you are gone! Your husk has reached into what has no end, and that is where the great saps are brewing now. On the outside a warmth is helping, for high, high above, your own suns are growing immense and they glow as they wheel around. Yet something has already started to live in you that will live longer than the suns. Translation from the German by Robert Bly

[KathyB]

Something lighthearted:

"Juanita, Juanita
Lovely, dear Juanita
From your head down to your feet,
There's nothing half so sweet,
As Juanita, Juanita, Juanita.
Oh, there are things of wonder,
Of which men like to sing.
There are pretty sunsets and birds upon the wing,
But of the joys of nature,
None truly can compare,
With Juanita, Juanita, she of beauty beyond compare.
Juanita, Juanita, love dear Juanit,"

Barney Fife

[BarbStAubrey]

Fun - we do need more fun don't we - Maybe that could be our theme for the next few weeks - fun poems - Yep, I could go with that...

[BarbStAubrey]

Snow Gillian Clarke The dreamed Christmas, flakes shaken out of silences so far and starry we can’t sleep for listening for papery rustles out there in the night and wake to find our ceiling glimmering, the day a psaltery of light. So we’re out over the snow fields before it’s all seen off with a salt-lick of Atlantic air, then home at dusk, snow-blind from following chains of fox and crow and hare, to a fire, a roasting bird, a ringing phone, and voices wondering where we are. A day foretold by images of glassy pond, peasant and snowy roof over the holy child iconed in gold. Or women shawled against the goosedown air pleading with soldiers at a shifting frontier in the snows of television, while in the secret dark a fresh snow falls filling our tracks with stars.

[BarbStAubrey]

At the Solstice Shaun O'Brien We say Next time we’ll go away, But then the winter happens, like a secret We’ve to keep yet never understand As daylight turns to cinema once more: A lustrous darkness deep in ice-age cold, And the print in need of restoration Starting to consume itself With snowfall where no snow is falling now. Or could it be a cloud of sparrows, dancing In the bare hedge that this gale of light Is seeking to uproot? Let it be sparrows, then, Still dancing in the blazing hedge, Their tender fury and their fall, Because it snows, because it burns.

[BarbStAubrey]

The Bells Edgar Allen Poe Hear the sledges with the bells --             Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells!       How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,           In the icy air of night!       While the stars that oversprinkle       All the heavens, seem to twinkle           With a crystalline delight;         Keeping time, time, time,         In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells    From the bells, bells, bells, bells,               Bells, bells, bells --  From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

[BarbStAubrey]

[BarbStAubrey]

Home... By Ardelia Cotton Barton A perfect home is heaven's door, It's built of loving deeds, No angry frown nor biting word Will sow discordant seeds. No selfish wish nor cruel act, Will in this home be found. No thought of self will have a place, For each to each is bound By ties of love so pure indeed, So helpful, so serene; That door seems portal of high heav'n, Rich treasures there are seen. Oh! joyous home, when built of love-- Foundation of esteem. The walls are raised from happiness, With love the windows gleam. This home will stand for aye on earth And through eternity, For God and angels hold the lease-- The rent is sanctity.

[KathyB]

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
By William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

Having listened to this poem read by many people, including the author, I find this reading the best.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCzb2DzkS_s

[BarbStAubrey]

Love these lines - they are like balm to the soul -

"And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;"

[KathyB]

Yes! Isn't it wonderful.

[BarbStAubrey]

Watching a Great Granddaughter At Play by Bunny Moon (State College, PA) She frolics without care. Her joy is plain to see: Her laughter fills the air. We two make quite a pair. I rub my aching knee; she frolics without care. She gives me quite a scare, scrambling up a tall tree. Her laughter fills the air. With energy to spare (please, child, send some to me), she frolics without care. She cartwheels with a flair, Calls, "Grammy, look at me." Her laughter fills the air With bursting heart I stare at one so dear to me. She frolics without care. Her laughter fills the air.

[PatH]

Nice!  Catches the spirit beautifully.

[Frybabe]

This morning I ran across this short poem read by Hugh Fraser. Just loved his eyes light up at the ending.  I didn't remember that George McDonald wrote poetry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i0GdWVYdBU