Today's poet

[Duncan R]

I was told this poem by a poet who works within organisations, using poetry to explore leadership & personal development. It is native american in origin & about when a little boy asks his grandparents what he should do when he is lost in the forest. A serious predicament for a young boy back then on America's NW coast with its giant forests. This is the grandparents reply;
LOST

Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside are not lost.
Wherever you are is called here, and you must treat it
like a powerful stranger.
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you,
if you leave it you may come back saying Here.
No two trees are the same to raven, No two branches are the same to wren,
if what a tree or a bush does is lost on you you are truly lost.
Stand still.
The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you.


I have replayed this in my head when lost out in the hills running in the dark/mist, and have always found it helpful in terms of stopping, paying real attention to where I am & sorting it out. Hope you like it.
Duncan

[freckle]

I was told this poem by a poet who works within organisations, using poetry to explore leadership & personal development. It is native american in origin & about when a little boy asks his grandparents what he should do when he is lost in the forest. A serious predicament for a young boy back then on America's NW coast with its giant forests. This is the grandparents reply;
LOST

Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside are not lost.
Wherever you are is called here, and you must treat it
like a powerful stranger.
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you,
if you leave it you may come back saying Here.
No two trees are the same to raven, No two branches are the same to wren,
if what a tree or a bush does is lost on you you are truly lost.
Stand still.
The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you.


I have replayed this in my head when lost out in the hills running in the dark/mist, and have always found it helpful in terms of stopping, paying real attention to where I am & sorting it out. Hope you like it.
Duncan

Thank you for posting this Duncan I do indeed like it very much, I found it quite moving.

[freckle]

A Walk

My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance-

and charges us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Love a bit of Rilke...nice one Mossy ...very enigmatic

[freckle]

Been doing some research about Dufton and found this...

In his poem New Year Letter, written inNew York during the war Auden expresses his thoughts about the north Pennines, which highlight his fascination and obsession with the landscape around Dufton. I think it is awesome it immediately makes me think of High Cup Nick...can't wait to see it again soon!

Whenever I begin to think..
An English area comes to mind
I see the nature of my kind
As a locality I love
Those limestone moors that stretch from Brough
To HEXHAM and the ROMAN WALL,
This is the symbol of us all.
There where the EDEN leisures through
Its sandstone valley, is my view
Of green and civil life that dwells
Below a cliff of savage fells
From which original address
Man faulted into consciousness.
Along the line of lapse the fire
of life's impersonal desire
Burst through his sedentary rock
And, as at DUFTON and at KNOCK
Thrust up between his mind and heart
Enormous cones of myth and art.
Always my boy of wish returns
To those peat-stained deserted burns
That feed the WEAR and TYNE and TEES
And, turning states to strata see
How basalt long oppressed broke out
In wild revolt at CAULDRON SNOUT.

WH Auden

[Harry H Howgill]

What a great find. I'll be visiting one of the sources of the Eden today funnily enough.

Have a good day everyone.

Been doing some research about Dufton and found this...

In his poem New Year Letter, written inNew York during the war Auden expresses his thoughts about the north Pennines, which highlight his fascination and obsession with the landscape around Dufton. I think it is awesome it immediately makes me think of High Cup Nick...can't wait to see it again soon!

Whenever I begin to think..
An English area comes to mind
I see the nature of my kind
As a locality I love
Those limestone moors that stretch from Brough
To HEXHAM and the ROMAN WALL,
This is the symbol of us all.
There where the EDEN leisures through
Its sandstone valley, is my view
Of green and civil life that dwells
Below a cliff of savage fells
From which original address
Man faulted into consciousness.
Along the line of lapse the fire
of life's impersonal desire
Burst through his sedentary rock
And, as at DUFTON and at KNOCK
Thrust up between his mind and heart
Enormous cones of myth and art.
Always my boy of wish returns
To those peat-stained deserted burns
That feed the WEAR and TYNE and TEES
And, turning states to strata see
How basalt long oppressed broke out
In wild revolt at CAULDRON SNOUT.

WH Auden

[Hes]

Gosh...bit quiet on here tonight! My theory is that as the days lengthen, so the running becomes better and also I think a few hardcore poets are out for the night seeing Joss. I, on the other hand, am sat with an elastic band round my ankles over a pair of wellies taking a break from my physio exercises in the hope that my 'disappointing left buttock' will be a little firmer for my next appointment.

Just bought a book about imagist poetry:

The Encounter

All the while they were talking the new morality
Her eyes explored me.
And when I rose to go
Her fingers were like the tissue
Of a Japanese paper napkin.

Ezra Pound

[Hes]

the snickering ewe
calling her baby to her
eyes me warily

[stevefoster]

the snickering ewe
calling her baby to her
eyes me warily

I now have an image of a sheep chewing on a marathon

[Hes]

Ha ha...like it!

I once saw a sheep eating a kitkat on Snowdon.

I now have an image of a sheep chewing on a marathon

[Hes]

Just read the post by Duncs...that's a great poem. Very inspirational and so true.