Today's poet

[Hes]

Gerard Manley Hopkin's 'Windhover' and Robert Frost's 'Blue Butterfly Day' inspired a couple of my prints....and Neruda too. Some amazing choices here.

It is blue-butterfly day here in spring,
And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry
There is more unmixed color on the wing
Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry.

But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.

Robert Frost

[freckle]

Training

I really enjoyed this poem (and the link), it reminded me about a really good book I read recently "Regeneration" by Pat Barker which amongst other things talks about Siegfried Sasoon and Wilfred Owen's time at Craiglockhart during the first world war (due to "shell shock")...an interesting part of history...must read the next one in the trilogy if I can drag myself away from the computer!!!....

here is a short Siegfied Sassoon poem which I like (unusually it is not about the war!):

What you are I cannot say
Only this I know full well-
When I touched your face today
Drifts of blossom flushed and fell.

Whence you came I cannot tell;
Only with your joy you start
Chime on chime from bell on bell
In the clositers of my heart.

Another one by SS is considerably more serious, appertaining to his time at Craiglockhart and relating to his sense of guilt that he was no longer on the front line (as you were probably aware he ultimately objected to the 1ww).

Sick Leave

When I'm asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,
They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead.
While the dim charging breakers of the storm
Bellow and drone and rumble overhead,
Out of the gloom they gather around my bed.
They whisper to my heart; there thoughts are mine.
"Why are you here with all your watches ended?

"From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line."
In bitter safety I awake, unfriended;
And while the dawn begins with slashing rain
I think of the Battalion in the mud.
"When are you going out to them again?
Are they still not your brothers through our blood?".

Han- i really like your poem, Autumn seems to get a rough time from the poets tho i think! looking forward to the translation.

Hes- that was a really pretty piece...hope your weekend went well!

Southern Softie- i am waiting for the limerick!

[Hanneke]

Hes, are you an artist?

Some lovely poems here! It is a great joy to discover new things! Thank you for starting this thread Freckle

[Hanneke]

Hey, google is your friend!

As I must still have my poetry books (or all those i bought before I moved to my chapel) in a box in store as I can't find them... I decided to Google Hans Lodeizen and found an interesting paper on him in... ENGLISH!

With lots of his poems in Dutch and English...

You will find it here http://www.lowensteyn.com/poetry/lodeizen1.html

[nightingale]

Never been much of a one for poems but , this one captured me a few years ago .

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee, Jr

Or video version on utube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvZeuzXGFb0

[nightingale]

Oooo hello nightingale and welcome to this thread! What a beautiful poem...more please pd very appropriate for this time of year with all those migrating birds...

I would love to be able to contribute more but I think thats as good as it gets from me (perhaps I started too high)

The poem is know to Pilots and ,I think, it really captures the feeling of freedom some of us are lucky enough to expierience during some of our airbourne exploits .

Here is a link to one of many sites about Gillespie and that poem http://www.skygod.com/quotes/highflight.html



.

[Stevie]

Ours is not a violent country.
Despite its exiguous carcasses,
rigid furs
across which farm-children
stumble on callous mornings,
no murders are committed.

Ours is an innocent land.
Despite its ominous offerings
- an open vole
an unattached wing
which could not have belonged
to Hughs' crow -
we are not implicated
in indictable crimes

The beaters, stumbling ahead,
are not even paid;
they wipe their pink noses
on cardigan sleeves
and know little enough.
Our polished shot-guns
are never sawn off.

Fenlanders by Peter Cash

Not running related and not hill related, but I like the feeling of the fens this poem offers. I think that feeling must be true of many isolated rural places, fen and fell alike. The innocence of rural violence.

[Stevie]

I have attempted a couple of OMM haiku

Stumbling on tussocks
My face flayed by gritty rain
Elan Valley day

Quivering darkness
Wind frightens our little tent
Elan Valley night

[Derby Tup]

Sat in grey workplace
July sun feels long time done
Headtorch glows in frost

[Stolly]

Hehe, DT's winter poems are really bleak and grim aren't they. I can't really find a poem that expresses how I feel but, simply put, I love all of the seasons and the weather that's thrown at you in this country. And I love all of the hills and wilderness too whether its in Snowdonia, the New Forest, the Peak, the Dales, the Lakes, the North York Moors, Kilder, the Scottish Borders or the Scottish Highlands or where ever. I even love midges

Running in the hills just puts you out in it all, whatever's going and as a sport/hobby/obsession you just appreciate all the nuances, beauty and scaryness included, that each place, season and type of weather brings.

Here at work I'm generally surrounded by mamby pamby types and all they frigging talk about is how bad the weather is and how they were unable to do anything at the weekend, other than drink a lot and/or watch X Factor. They yearn for foreign holidays of not doing much other than drinking a lot and lying by the pool and then, when the weather is hot in this country, they complain about that too .

Autumns fantastic and winter, bring it on!