Poetry Page

[bellemere]

My fading dream is to attend the Yeats Summer School in
Sligo, or even the Yeats Winter Weekend.  and tour the sites of his poems. 
Here is one about the home of Countess Markiewicz  (did I get that right"

IN MEMORY OF EVA GORE BOOTH AND CON MARKEWICZ

The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, one a gazelle,
But a raving autumn shears
Blossom from the summer's wreath,
The older is condemned to death,
Pardoned, drags out lonely years
Conspiring among the ignorant.
I know not what the younger dreams,
Some vague utopia and she seems
When withered old and skeleton gaunt
An image of such politics.
Many a time I think to seek
One or the other out and speak
Of that old Georgian mansion, mix
Pictures of the mind, recall
That table and the talk of youth,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
Dear shadows, now you see it all.
All the folly of a fight
With a common wrong or right,
The innocent and the beautiful
Have no enemy but time;
Arise and bid me strike a match;
And strike another till time catch;
Should the conflagration climb,
Run till all the sages know
We the great gazebo built,
They convicted us of guilt;
Bid me strike a match and blow.


Lissadell was not one of theAnglo Irish houses burned ; it still stands and you can go and see it.

[Babi]

Dear shadows, now you see it all.
All the folly of a fight
With a common wrong or right,

  It's hard to say. Sometimes it seems necessary and right to fight. Perhaps
the judgment of 'folly' depends on whether the fight was successful, or failed.

[bellemere]

"gazelle" and gazebo" are pretty rare words and he uses them both in one poem.  Hmmmm.
I think "the great gazebo" refers to the Anglo Irish culture of Ireland, with its gentry lifestyle , literary achievments, etc.  A structure designe d  for pleasure.  But at their peril, they ignored the hunger and deprivation of the Irish people.  and it went up in flames, finally . 

[BarbStAubrey]

http://www.lissadellhouse.com/

So many wonderful photos of the house and grounds that the site takes a minute to completely upload.

I think in this poem he is typical of the outlook of his times where as, today we would consider him patriarchal - he seems to be saying these girls/women took up the fight that should not have been theirs since it was their father who was the PM because the affect on them was to strip them of their innocence and beauty.

As the PM, their father is a product of the system of plantations started by the English after the Reformation bringing hoards of English and Scottish Protestants into Ireland to run the plantations. During this time new boroughs were created, all of which were Protestant-dominated assuring the overthrow of the Catholic majority in the Irish Parliament. Then, although 85% of the population was Irish, as Irish Catholics they were banned from the Irish Parliament and so the dark shadow -

Reading history, during the Reformation, the horrors that were used to murder Catholics and priests in Ireland put Auschwitz to shame and to clean all this history with a baptism of fire, as Yeats suggests in his poem, seems appropriate. But yet, acknowledged is, where there is a common roof, like the roof of a gazebo over both sides of the Irish historical troubles, there are no walls separating those affected during these hundreds of years after the system was established - with the children of the perpetrators [who took authority over Ireland] having been born and raised feeling kinship to Ireland.

The poem seems to be saying these two young girls should have been icons to their loveliness rather than either, one being condemned to death and both living out their years wanting change. The Utopia that is addressed in the poem is talking about the younger sister who was a suffragist - that line to me is the key to how Yeats feels about women, which is the underlying conviction for his thinking the women’s beauty and Innocents, visible as young girls was more important and lost to the fight.  

Interesting, Yeats does not suggest the window to the south be shut or boarded up but rather the whole is so open on all sides and the pain as well as guilt is beyond sorting out by even the sages so that as the air that swirls through a gazebo heightens a flame the conflagration will blow the system to ashes.

[BarbStAubrey]

There is an effort to confer sainthood on some of the Irish Martyrs. This is an account of a small group of the known horrors during the Reformation - the Catholic Church in Ireland did turn to Rome for help and Rome did send a few 'Doctors' of the Church and as I remember the Jesuits were able to travel between Ireland and Rome during the suppression.

During the suppression there is a partial narrative in the recital of an old Trinitarian friar, written down by one of his brethren, Father Richard Goldie or Goold (Goldæus), an Irish professor at the University of Alcalá.

According to this account, on the first announcement of the king's design, Theobald (Burke?), provincial of the order, came to Dublin with eight other doctors to maintain the pope's supremacy.

They were cast into prison;
Theobald's heart was torn from his living body;
Philip, a writer, was scourged, put into boots filled with oil and salt, roasted till the flesh came away from the bone, and then beheaded;
the rest were hanged or beheaded.

Cornelius, Bishop of Limerick, was beheaded there;
Cormac was shot and stoned to death at Galway;
Maurice and Thomas, brothers-german, hanged on their way to Dublin;
Stephen, stabbed near Wexford;
Peter of Limerick and Geoffrey, beheaded;
John Macabrigus, lay brother, drowned;
Raymond, ex-superior, dragged at a horse's tail in Dublin;
Tadhg O'Brien of Thomond, torn to pieces in the viceroy's presence at Bombriste bridge between Limerick and Kilmallock;

The Dublin community, about fifty, put to various deaths;
those of Adare, cut down, stabbed, or hanged;
those of Galway, twenty, burned to death in their convent or, by another account, six were thrown into a lime-kiln, the rest weighted with stones and cast into the sea;
those of Drogheda, forty, slain, hanged, or thrown into a pit;
at Limerick, over fifty butchered in choir or thrown with weights into the Shannon;
at Cork and Kilmallock, over ninety slain by the sword or dismembered, including William Burke, John O'Hogan, Michael, Richard, and Giollabrighde.

[MarjV]

Horrible account!!!!

The pics of Lissadel are great/

[BarbStAubrey]

The Last Days of Summer
 
   During the last days of summer
   When the earth is dry and still
   Wind blows the first fallen leaves
   Across the big green hill.
   The rose that brought such pleasure
   Now bids a fond farewell
   As she sheds her velvety petals
   Across the hill.
   I must say goodbye to summer skies
   And I'll miss the daisies that line the hill
   With their slow and gentle nods
   Seasons come and seasons go
   And I know that summer must surrender
   To the beauty of autumn
   That will fill the earth with wonder
 
Kana Sky

[BarbStAubrey]

THE LAST DAY OF SUMMER

On the last day of summer, I walk the streets,
the dying breeze in the air carrying salt
from the bay, a stench like money from the mill.
These dark streets cool in the moonlight,
the heat of day fading like a dying star,
tossed aside and forgotten.

                                          Out past 12th street,
I stop at a small bridge over the canal.
Beneath me, the water runs thick and brown,
the moon reflecting back like a god’s eye,
half closed as if asleep.  I see my own face
staring back, a boy, 14 years old, with a pudgy
face, round cheeks, eyes like the hollows
of pecan shells, split.  My image wavers
in the water, thick as honey.

Who was I then but a child?  Was the night mine?
I owned every step I took, tasted the night
air with my tongue and felt astounded
by the freshness, like a fat yellow honeydew.
Above me, the moon rode in the purple
sky as the summer drained from the little town
by the bay.  I’d spent another year, walking
beneath the living sky, waiting for the days
to pass, and hoping that I could one day
ride the breeze like the salt and become
someone else’s memory in another place.

Jeff Newberry

[BarbStAubrey]

The Last Days of Summer
by Patricia Parker

The last days of summer are often bittersweet.
No more lightening bugs or the cushioned
feeling of bare feet running through the newly
cut grass.The days shorten. The clouds thicken.
The gentle aroma of the rose is fading. We
have come to the waning days of summer.

The flowers once lovingly tended
have begun their descent back into the earth
once again content to sleep away a cold winter season
knowing nature will revive their beauty in the spring.

The trees that shaded and protected earth all summer
now stand like sentinels, quiet, deep in reverie.
Leaves, once verdant and green, will now prepare
for their annual color display, then fade away.

The early morning creatures will find new homes.
Burrows and tunnels are being readied.
Windows and shades open to the world will be shuttered
As the daylight fades into early evening dark.

The last days of summer usher in new sensations.
North winds replace Southern breezes as
migratory birds prepare for their journey to
a more inviting place.

Each season has its own beginning and end.
The last days of summer will become the first
days of fall and the harvest will heed the
call of winter. It is as it should be.

The neighborhoods once alive with the laughter
and movement of children will suddenly become
quieter. School buses will rumble down city
streets and country lanes carrying their precious
cargo's, tanned and now weighted down with book bags.

The unmistakable aroma of hamburgers sizzling on a
gas grill will soon be replaced by the indoor smells
of stews and casseroles. Corn will be eaten from
a freezer package and the luscious fruits of the
summer will be replaced by pumpkin pies and
rhubarb pies and the last of the canned peaches.

The last days of summer will find the patio chairs
safely stored away and the outdoor torches reluctantly
taken down. The hanging baskets will be admired for
the last time as they give way to a chilly late summer
evening.

No longer anticipating a leisurely Sunday
sipping coffee on the patio, the last days of summer are
often cool and dictate that we read the Sunday paper at
the kitchen table.

From this vantage point, we can watch the earth evolve.
It begins slowly but purposefully as it has for millions
of years. We will enjoy the last days of summer because
its what humans have always done, and we'll remember
the lightening bugs and the feel of the grass beneath
our feet until we can experience it again.

[BarbStAubrey]

My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer     
by Mark Strand 

1

When the moon appears
and a few wind-stricken barns stand out
in the low-domed hills
and shine with a light
that is veiled and dust-filled
and that floats upon the fields,
my mother, with her hair in a bun,
her face in shadow, and the smoke
from her cigarette coiling close
to the faint yellow sheen of her dress,
stands near the house
and watches the seepage of late light
down through the sedges,
the last gray islands of cloud
taken from view, and the wind
ruffling the moon's ash-colored coat
on the black bay.


2

Soon the house, with its shades drawn closed, will send
small carpets of lampglow
into the haze and the bay
will begin its loud heaving
and the pines, frayed finials
climbing the hill, will seem to graze
the dim cinders of heaven.
And my mother will stare into the starlanes,
the endless tunnels of nothing,
and as she gazes,
under the hour's spell,
she will think how we yield each night
to the soundless storms of decay
that tear at the folding flesh,
and she will not know
why she is here
or what she is prisoner of
if not the conditions of love that brought her to this.


3

My mother will go indoors
and the fields, the bare stones
will drift in peace, small creatures --
the mouse and the swift -- will sleep
at opposite ends of the house.
Only the cricket will be up,
repeating its one shrill note
to the rotten boards of the porch,
to the rusted screens, to the air, to the rimless dark,
to the sea that keeps to itself.
Why should my mother awake?
The earth is not yet a garden
about to be turned. The stars
are not yet bells that ring
at night for the lost.
It is much too late.

[BarbStAubrey]

In Summer     
by Paul Laurence Dunbar 

 
Oh, summer has clothed the earth
In a cloak from the loom of the sun!
And a mantle, too, of the skies' soft blue,
And a belt where the rivers run.

And now for the kiss of the wind,
And the touch of the air's soft hands,
With the rest from strife and the heat of life,
With the freedom of lakes and lands.

I envy the farmer's boy
Who sings as he follows the plow;
While the shining green of the young blades lean
To the breezes that cool his brow.

He sings to the dewy morn,
No thought of another's ear;
But the song he sings is a chant for kings
And the whole wide world to hear.

He sings of the joys of life,
Of the pleasures of work and rest,
From an o'erfull heart, without aim or art;
'T is a song of the merriest.

O ye who toil in the town,
And ye who moil in the mart,
Hear the artless song, and your faith made strong
Shall renew your joy of heart.

Oh, poor were the worth of the world
If never a song were heard,—
If the sting of grief had no relief,
And never a heart were stirred.

So, long as the streams run down,
And as long as the robins trill,
Let us taunt old Care with a merry air,
And sing in the face of ill.

[Babi]

Oops.  I think I would have liked Kana Sky's poem better if she had
avoided that trite "fond farewell".
 You have been busy, BARB. That is quite a collection of 'late summer' poems,
and each so different.

[BarbStAubrey]

I am celebrating Babi - in the last 3 days we have had as much as a 10 degree drop in temperature. We were regularly, as the news reminded us 67 days with temps of 104 and 105 sometimes only 101.

The end of last week we had two evenings of rain and since the temp only hit 99 and then 94 and 95 -

Usually those temps are uncomfortable because the humidity is also high when the searing over 100 degrees are with us to burn off the humidity but these lower temps came down from the north with the lowest humidity we have experienced all summer and so it feels like a new season is arriving - it feels like the back of summer is broken -

We could still see a few days of 100 or better because for us summer is not over till about the first week in October but with this slight northerly breeze and lower temps we know that Autumn is really only weeks away.

[BarbStAubrey]

I know  you are in  the Houston area Babi and have experienced these temps as well - my son is over in Magnolia and works in Houston - his office is at Hobby and the temps there were even hotter than here in Austin - I have not spoken to him since Thursday to find out if y'all got the rain and if the temps are less now than they were all summer.

But Marj I do not know where you live and if you are into the beginning of fall weather - watching the Funeral for Ted Kennedy on C-SPAN it appears that not only was it raining in Boston but it was cold enough for jackets and coats. I forget that in other areas of the country they are into Autumn weather - what about where you are Marj - are you experiencing the chilly days of Autumn?

[BarbStAubrey]

Help me out here if you can -  I think Babi probably has made her visit for the day - I am trying to use up enough posts so the new heading will be on top of the next page - unfortunately I missed the last heading for this page but just as well because I don't think I can get 40 Summer posts - well not exactly 40 - I have to count how many more we need.

[BarbStAubrey]

We need 25 more posts - hmmm doubt we can 25 but a few more and then I will put up the new Fall heading that as soon as the new page is turned on post number 680 the heading will be on top of the page.

[BarbStAubrey]

The Earth Laughs in Flowers
-  Ralph Waldo Emerson

[BarbStAubrey]

If seeds in the black earth can turn into such beautiful
roses, what might not the heart of man become in its
long journey toward the stars?
-  G.K. Chesterton

[BarbStAubrey]

He who wants a rose must respect the thorn.
Persian Proverb

[BarbStAubrey]

Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns.
I am thankful that thorns have roses.
-   Alphonse Karr (1808-1890)

[mrssherlock]

I've not been in a poetry mood for a while but I'm back and will be happily catching up on these poems about summer as it fades into fall. 

[mrssherlock]

I'm on a Kipling kick so here's one of his:

The Way Through the Woods.
 
They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods.   .   .   .
But there is no road through the woods.

And another: 

September
At dawn there was a murmur in the trees,
  A ripple on the tank, and in the air
  Presage of coming coolness -- everywhere
A voice of prophecy upon the breeze.
Up leapt the Sun and smote the dust to gold,
  And strove to parch anew the heedless land,
All impotently, as a King grown old
  Wars for the Empire crumbling 'neath his hand.
  One after one the lotos-petals fell,
  Beneath the onslaught of the rebel year,
  In mutiny against a furious sky;
  And far-off Winter whispered: -- "It is well!
  "Hot Summer dies. Behold your help is near,
  "For when men's need is sorest, then come I."

[BarbStAubrey]

I love it 

"Hot Summer dies. Behold your help is near,
  "For when men's need is sorest, then come I."

[BarbStAubrey]

Welcome to our Autumn Poetry Page.
A haven for those who listen to the words
that open hearts, imagination, and our feelings
that we share about the poems we post - Please Join Us.

Poetry can be part of life       rather than a thing apart. Share with us       Poems about the end          of the natural year.           Tell us       How you celebrate          a poet's life and poems. Autumn holidays -       Tell us about Poetry in          Fall parties and gift giving.

A few Poetry Links:

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

Discussion Leaders: BarbStAubrey & Fairanna

[BarbStAubrey]

This poem for me tells the story of forgetting summer -

If You Forget Me 
 
I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Pablo Neruda

 

[bellamarie]

Autumn for me since 911 always brings a little sadness, as summer heat slowly fades, and brisk mornings have me pulling out my warm robe to come down and make the coffee.  My grand daughters each have a birthday in Sept., one on the 10th and one on the 12th, so that is my way of realizing Autumn is near.  My daughter in  law did not want a Sept. 11th birthday for either of them, so her doctor allowed her to pick the day to induce her.  The day after 911 occurred I sat down in total disbelief and wrote this poem.  It has been published in an Anthology called Visions From Within, part of the Under a Quicksilver Moon series by The International Library of Poetry.
Copyright 2002 by the International Library of Poetry as a compilation.

Staying the Faith

I try to comprehend that horrible Tuesday,
My insecure mind wants to lead me far away.
Lost are the innocent children, men and women,
Not just Americans, all races and religions.
I need to feel comfort and safety again,
Yet I know this is far from the end.
More tears will be shed, more time of despair,
More lives lost as we strike through the air.
We have to retaliate, this I know.
The price to pay for justice will not be low.
Numbers surpass thousands lost to this date,
Too high a price to pay in the name of hate.
I pray for the dead and families left behind,
Seems God's love as I know it, is not the terrorist's same kind.
Seeing the countries we'll attack I'm certain,
Are filled with fear while the killers hide in caves and behind curtains.
After witnessing evil in such great mass,
I need my faith to remain steadfast.
                                                         Annabella Marie Reinhart
                                                                    AKA bellamarie

[BarbStAubrey]

Thanks goodness you have your faith to lean on Bellemere - Congratulations on having one of  your poems published - that is a special feeling of accomplishment isn't it.

We haven't experienced the "Brisk" mornings yet that would require a warm robe but we are thankful this week the temps are in the mid nineties - sounds hot but for us it is a relief from triple digits  with the result everyone is outside again.

This Auden poem is a bit long but too perfect to pass up - I think it better to give it a post of its  own.

[BarbStAubrey]

September 1, 1939     
by W. H. Auden 

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

[mrssherlock]

    Haiku

a breeze blows
leaves of all different colors
flutter to the ground

Rebekah Slodounik

Oh scarlet autumn!
that profound punctuation
to shamrock summer

Carol Nation

Yellow autumn moon ...
unimpressed the scarecrow stands
simply looking bored

ISSA -- 1763-1827

autumn dusk
scarecrow points
to the rising moon

first autumn trees
begin to blush
before disrobing

Philip K Noble

[BarbStAubrey]

Jackie they are great - my favoite is:

Yellow autumn moon ...
unimpressed the scarecrow stands
simply looking bored

the image brings a smile to my face.

[Babi]

I'm so glad to hear y'all got a break in the weather, BARB.  Yeah, we
got rain weeks before you did. Almost daily rain for the past two weeks,
I would guess.
  No time for a poem. My daughter needs the computer back for her work.
See you later.

[BarbStAubrey]

Emily Dickinson
 
High from the earth I heard a bird;
He trod upon the trees
As he esteemed them trifles,
And then he spied a breeze,
And situated softly
Upon a pile of wind
Which in a perturbation
Nature had left behind.
A joyous-going fellow
I gathered from his talk,
Which both of benediction
And badinage partook,
Without apparent burden,
I learned, in leafy wood
He was the faithful father
Of a dependent brood;
And this untoward transport
His remedy for care,—
A contrast to our respites.
How different we are

[BarbStAubrey]

Yesterday, September 2 was the anniversary of the Birthday of Eugene Fields a writer of children's poems. Here is one of  his poems fitting the fall season when apple picking, baking into a pie and eating it is high on our agenda.

Apple-Pie and Cheese 
 
  Full many a sinful notion
Conceived of foreign powers
Has come across the ocean
To harm this land of ours;
And heresies called fashions
Have modesty effaced,
And baleful, morbid passions
Corrupt our native taste.
O tempora! O mores!
What profanations these
That seek to dim the glories
Of apple-pie and cheese!

I'm glad my education
Enables me to stand
Against the vile temptation
Held out on every hand;
Eschewing all the tittles
With vanity replete,
I'm loyal to the victuals
Our grandsires used to eat!
I'm glad I've got three willing boys
To hang around and tease
Their mother for the filling joys
Of apple-pie and cheese!

Your flavored creams and ices
And your dainty angel-food
Are mighty fine devices
To regale the dainty dude;
Your terrapin and oysters,
With wine to wash 'em down,
Are just the thing for roisters
When painting of the town;
No flippant, sugared notion
Shall my appetite appease,
Or bate my soul's devotion
To apple-pie and cheese!

The pie my Julia makes me
(God bless her Yankee ways!)
On memory's pinions takes me
To dear Green Mountain days;
And seems like I see Mother
Lean on the window-sill,
A-handin' me and brother
What she knows 'll keep us still;
And these feelings are so grateful,
Says I, "Julia, if you please,
I'll take another plateful
Of that apple-pie and cheese!"

And cheese! No alien it, sir,
That's brought across the sea,--
No Dutch antique, nor Switzer,
Nor glutinous de Brie;
There's nothing I abhor so
As mawmets of this ilk--
Give me the harmless morceau
That's made of true-blue milk!
No matter what conditions
Dyspeptic come to feaze,
The best of all physicians
Is apple-pie and cheese!

Though ribalds may decry 'em,
For these twin boons we stand,
Partaking thrice per diem
Of their fulness out of hand;
No enervating fashion
Shall cheat us of our right
To gratify our passion
With a mouthful at a bite!
We'll cut it square or bias,
Or any way we please,
And faith shall justify us
When we carve our pie and cheese!

De gustibus, 't is stated,
Non disputandum est.
Which meaneth, when translated,
That all is for the best.
So let the foolish choose 'em
The vapid sweets of sin,
I will not disabuse 'em
Of the heresy they're in;
But I, when I undress me
Each night, upon my knees
Will ask the Lord to bless me
With apple-pie and cheese!

Eugene Field 
 

[MarjV]

Apple Pie and Cheese.   Making me drool.

I know we are done with summer poems BUT , this one came in an e-mail
today and it is a stunner by Mary Oliver - so must share it, Gals.

Song of the Builders
 
On a summer morning
I sat down
on a hillside
to think about God -
 
a worthy pastime.
Near me, I saw
a single cricket;
it was moving the grains of the hillside
 
this way and that way.
How great was its energy,
how humble its effort.
Let us hope
 
it will always be like this,
each of us going on
in our inexplicable ways
building the universe.
 
~ Mary Oliver ~
 
(Why I Wake Early)
 

[Babi]

  I do love Emily Dickinson. I don't think I've ever read a poem of
hers I didn't like.  And I wonder if Eugene Field would think me decadent
and unpatriotic if I prefer my apple pie warm, with ice cream?

  Have I thanked you for introducing me to Mary Oliver, MARj? I have
been delighted to make her acquaintance.

  To start off the new season...here's John Updike's "September". I
think he has caught it all.

  "The breezes taste
Of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel-
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk, and such.
The bee, his hive,
Well-honeyed hum,
And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze."
-   John Updike, September

[BarbStAubrey]

I guess we all  have our favorite when it comes to pie and especially apple pie - I prefer an apple pie with a crumb topping made with pecans and I prefer the filling to have raisins among the apples. Don't care for hot apple pie and ice cream does a number on me as does whipped cream [lactose intolarent] and like you Babi cheese on apple pie seems strange - I've heard of it but not a favorite - although, when we talk favorites I cannot say apple pie is top on my list.

Here is a new poet for me - Denise Levertov - interesting life story and I do like this September poem. It is not the same old same old as she talks about the sea and the road to the sea. I am thinking her sea is the sea of the historical accumulated humanity and as individuals we are on the road to that sea of history.

September 1961  
 
  This is the year the old ones,
the old great ones
leave us alone on the road.

The road leads to the sea.
We have the words in our pockets,
obscure directions. The old ones

have taken away the light of their presence,
we see it moving away over a hill
off to one side.

They are not dying,
they are withdrawn
into a painful privacy

learning to live without words.
E. P. "It looks like dying"-Williams: "I can't
describe to you what has been

happening to me"-
H. D. "unable to speak."
The darkness

twists itself in the wind, the stars
are small, the horizon
ringed with confused urban light-haze.

They have told us
the road leads to the sea,
and given

the language into our hands.
We hear
our footsteps each time a truck

has dazzled past us and gone
leaving us new silence.
One can't reach

the sea on this endless
road to the sea unless
one turns aside at the end, it seems,

follows
the owl that silently glides above it
aslant, back and forth,

and away into deep woods.

But for us the road
unfurls itself, we count the
words in our pockets, we wonder

how it will be without them, we don't
stop walking, we know
there is far to go, sometimes

we think the night wind carries
a smell of the sea...

 
 

[mrssherlock]

Oh, I am moved:

They are not dying,
they are withdrawn
into a painful privacy

learning to live without words.

[mrssherlock]

No author's name on this one but here is the link:  http://www.friendship-poems.com/poems.php?id=1129022

by SilentSuicide

I watch the seasons change from summer to winter.
The leaves fall off the trees, as the same tree begins to die.
Flowers hide beneath the ground, or they die as well.
We lay awake chilly, the heater is broken.

Such a drastic change.
We all have grown to know so well.
however i also watch you and I.
A season of friendship, that shall never die.

The grass of our connection, never loses its green.
No matter how much glistening white snow pounds it.
The branch's on our trees still hang high.
When some of the leaves slowly fall.

I compare you to the seasons, my friend.
We all come to face changes in our lives.
The seasons, are inevitable.
our friendship, is everlasting.

The heater is always working were we stand.
Burning soothingly throughout the winter nights.
Spring approaches once again
With showers of joy we reached another season as friends.

I'll admit, friend, i know i have put you through parole.
Think not of such things, and what can become of us.
Don't you see? Don't you believe?
The things we can do, the things we can achieve.

I watched the seasons change from summer to fall
The leaves start to fall once again.
We stand together and smile.
At another season we will face together.

[mrssherlock]

This one by Robert Frost is new to me: 

Going For Water

The well was dry beside the door,
And so we went with pail and can
Across the fields behind the house
To seek the brook if still it ran;
Not loth to have excuse to go,
Because the autumn eve was fair
(Though chill), because the fields were ours,
And by the brook our woods were there.

We ran as if to meet the moon
That slowly dawned behind the trees,
The barren boughs without the leaves,
Without the birds, without the breeze.

But once within the wood, we paused
Like gnomes that hid us from the moon,
Ready to run to hiding new
With laughter when she found us soon.

Each laid on other a staying hand
To listen ere we dared to look,
And in the hush we joined to make
We heard, we knew we heard the brook.

A note as from a single place,
A slender tinkling fall that made
Now drops that floated on the pool

Like pearls, and now a silver blade.

Robert Frost

[mrssherlock]

Frost can be almost whimsical:

    Gathering Leaves

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color
.

Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who's to say where
The harvest shall stop?

Robert Frost