Poem of the moment

Saffron · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 12:40 pm Post subject:

Isn't all beauty and all love pied?

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.

Pied Beauty

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

Saffron · Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 1:21 pm Post subject:

It's an Emily Dickinson day --

Heart, we will forget him!
--You and I, tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
--I will forget the light.

When you have done, pray tell me,
--That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you're lagging,
--I may remember him!

Saffron · Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 1:27 pm Post subject: Emily Dickinson for DWill

For DWill: I heard this recited the other day and thought of you --

Emily Dickinson

I started early, took my dog,
And visited the sea;
The mermaids in the basement
Came out to look at me,

And frigates in the upper floor
Extended hempen hands,
Presuming me to be a mouse
Aground, upon the sands.

But no man moved me till the tide
Went past my simple shoe,
And past my apron and my belt,
And past my bodice too,

And made as he would eat me up
As wholly as a dew
Upon a dandelion’s sleeve—
And then I started too.

And he—he followed close behind;
I felt his silver heel
Upon my ankle,—then my shoes
Would overflow with pearl.

Until we met the solid town,
No man he seemed to know;
And bowing with a mighty look
At me, the sea withdrew.

DWill · Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 2:42 pm Post subject:

Thanks. I really do like that one a lot, had never read it before. I'm fascinated with the misdirection of "took my dog"--who never appears again. But I'm glad she put him/her in, because this is why you thought of me, I bet. (And I'm about to take my dog now, may cross a stream or two.)
Will

Saffron · Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 8:06 pm Post subject:

I just spoke to my mother on the phone. She was telling me that she'd just been to my brother's house. He was in the yard using a leaf blower. My young nephew was dancing in front of the spray of leaves as if he were in a shower. So, for CJ and his dad.

Gathering Leaves
by Robert Frost

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?

DWill · Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 8:31 pm Post subject:

What would we do without this guy, Frost? And how could anyone ever top this as a leaf-raking poem?

DWill

lapdog · Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 8:34 am Post subject: December Rose

With winter fast coming on, and the eternal need for love.....this short poem from the collection In All These Years I Never Met Anyone Real by Paul Judges, inspires me at the moment

DECEMBER ROSE

roses blooming
by the door
in early December

I bend
to inhale
sweet essence

I'm worried
that love's face
is always pale

though I must believe
it can survive
even frosts

giselle · Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:06 pm Post subject:

lapdog .. thank you, I enjoyed this poem. unusual connection between love and winter. but maybe that connection should not be so unusual.

Saffron · Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 5:02 pm Post subject:

I think it hits dead on. Love is much too small a word to hold all that it means to English speaking people. Love is a promise, as well as an emotion. Love as an emotion comes and goes. The poem captures both meanings.

Saffron · Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 9:46 pm Post subject:

God Says Yes To Me
Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

realiz · Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 6:48 pm Post subject:

Dawn
by Elizabeth Reninger

at this time
when the light is not yet
useful, merely
beautiful

when a bright
honey pours
nectar over a curved
horizon, into a nameless

chalice, and your vision
wakes also, as if
to meet it, touching
everything

when for an endless
moment all
colors are
this

color a shimmering
fabric an infinite
wisdom this

body
of pure love, so suddenly

your own. . .

Saffron · Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 10:24 pm Post subject:

I just finished watching an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's "Under the Greenwood Tree". I must admit my guilty pleasure is 19th century British literature. My daughter informed me that the title comes from a William Shakespeare poem. So, here it is.

William Shakespeare. 1564–1616

135. Under the Greenwood Tree

Amiens sings: UNDER the greenwood tree,
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

Who doth ambition shun,
And loves to live i' the sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleased with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

Jaques replies: If it do come to pass
That any man turn ass,
Leaving his wealth and ease
A stubborn will to please,
Ducdamè, ducdamè, ducdamè:
Here shall he see
Gross fools as he,
An if he will come to me.

Saffron · Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:25 pm Post subject:

With a little help from a congregation of clouds, it was nearly dark by 4:15 today. In 17 days we will be at the shortest day of the year -- hence the need for celebrations such as Advent and St. Lucia's Day (Dec. 13). This poem brings light into my darkening days. It is a favorite and one that is the center piece of most if not all Revel Celebrations. Don't know what a Revel Celebration is? Google it!

The Shortest Day
By Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

realiz · Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:54 pm Post subject:

Reluctance
By Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

Saffron · Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 6:01 pm Post subject:

From Robert Frost's Reluctance


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