Great choice freckle. I can't even see the top of my "redwood" nowOriginally Posted by freckle
Great choice freckle. I can't even see the top of my "redwood" now
Last edited by Alf; 21-04-2011 at 10:33 AM.
Ha ha...love it Alf! no worries, I'm 'manning up' as my friend likes to say but no hairy chest (yet!).:wink:
Happiness
There's just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.
And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.
No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.
It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.
Jane Kenyon
A Sea Fret
Running lonely in the fog
No one close or so it seems
A seagull swoops down low to me
And interrupts my dreams
I am an only figure
All around me speaks of white
An hour ago was sunny
But now it feels like night
The horn booms out across the seas
Ships captains do not fret
Steer clear of mermaids, rocks and waves
And the fog won't take you yet
Music beating in my ears
Pace, tempo, stride is flowing
I can barely see the ground below
But my feet just keep on going
Am I running into emptiness
The path seems to go nowhere
No markers or horizons
Just a hazy, eerie glare!
MG
Last edited by Mountain Goatess; 22-04-2011 at 08:46 AM.
This is from May Swenson - from Utah - who was a prolific poet in her lifetime. It's maybe a bit late for the subject given that Easter is at the end of April thanks to the moon :
Daffodils
Yellow telephones
in a row in the garden
are ringing,
shrill with light.
Old-fashioned spring
brings earliest models out
each April the same,
naïve and classical.
Look into the yolk-
colored mouthpieces
alert with echoes.
Say hello to time.
May Swenson ps I'm not reading the forum so often but liked the pieces on woodland
Perhaps those inland will not relate to this. We have now been in the fog for three days which means foghorns blowing all hours! :angry:
I really like that MG. And you've captured that strange sense of suspension and otherworldliness that running in fog can often induce. I don't think I've ever run on the coast and certainly not while being 'serenaded' by fog-horns! I especially like the last verse which seems very allegorical. Thanks
Am Yisrael Chai
Thanks Mossy. I had some good verse lined up whilst out there but it had disappeared from my mind by the time I got home. We should carry a pen and paper to capture these atmospheric moments when they are freshly thought up! The fog horn is still sounding as I type...it is headache inducing for me as I'm not used to living by the sea! x
This is great MG. So evocative. I did a race at New Marske today and then headed over to Saltburn and the sea fret was incredible. I've taken loads of eerie photos of people silhouetted in the mist and I didn't see the horizon or the sea at all for most of the afternoon.
Thanks Hes. I am wondering if this fog is ever going to lift. I ran again in it today and felt heavy like there was no oxygen in the air!
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