Originally Posted by Dave_Mole
Thats beautiful
Thats beautiful
The Bright Field’
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
R. S. Thomas
Am Yisrael Chai
A. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896.
II. Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
Am Yisrael Chai
Some lovely choices, I particularly like the RS Thomas. Its that time of year again, the curlews are back!
Curlew
The curve of its cry—
A sculpture
Of the long beak
A spiral carved from bone.
It is raised
quickening
From the ground,
Is wound high, and again unwound,
down
To the stalker nodding
In a marshy field.
It is the welling
Of a cold mineral spring,
Salt from the estuary
Dissolved, sharpening
The fresh vein bubbling on stone.
It is an echo
Repeating an echo
That calls you back.
It looses
Words from dust till the live tongue
Cry: This is mine
Not mine, this life
Welling from springs
Under ground, spiraling
Up the long flight of bone.
Jeremy Hooker
That's really wonderful - thanks for posting Hes.
The Primrose
By Caroline Southey (1787–1854)
I saw it in my evening walk,
A little lonely flower!
Under a hollow bank it grew,
Deep in a mossy bower.
An oak’s gnarl’d root, to roof the cave
With Gothic fretwork sprung,
Whence jewell’d fern, and arum leaves,
And ivy garlands hung.
And from beneath came sparkling out
From a fallen tree’s old shell,
A little rill, that dipt about
The lady in her cell.
And there, methought, with bashful pride,
She seem’d to sit and look
On her own maiden loveliness
Pale imaged in the brook.
No other flower—no rival grew
Beside my pensive maid;
She dwelt alone, a cloister’d nun,
In solitude and shade.
No sunbeam on that fairy well
Darted its dazzling light—
Only, methought, some clear, cold star
Might tremble there at night.
No ruffling wind could reach her there—
No eye, methought, but mine,
Or the young lamb’s that came to drink,
Had spied her secret shrine.
And there was pleasantness to me
In such belief. Cold eyes
That slight dear Nature’s lowliness,
Profane her mysteries.
Long time I looked and linger’d there,
Absorb’d in still delight—
My spirit drank deep quietness
In, with that quiet sight.
Am Yisrael Chai
A new poem by Carol Ann Duffy
Near
(for N.D.)
Far, we are near, meet in the rain
which falls here; gathered by light, air;
falls there where you are, I am; lips
to those drops now on yours, nearer …
absence the space we yearn in, clouds
drift, cluster, east to west, north, south;
your breath in them; they pour, baptise;
same sun burning through to harvest
rainfall on skin, there, far; my mouth
opening to spell your near name.
Am Yisrael Chai
It's been such a long time since I wrote anything - total loss of confidence after the last one or two which I read back and hated. Still, such is life.
There's a great lyric in a Radiohead song (Glass Eyes), "...the path trails off and heads down the mountain. I don't know where it goes. I don't really care". I've been trying to write something about just heading out there with no plan and then digging the map out when I've had my fill and figuring out how to get back to the car. It's the best kind of hassle free, pressure free, just free kind of exploratory fellrunning. I'd given up on it but that sentiment got it started again and I ended up with this. Hope it resonates or at the very least, provides a few seconds of mild diversion.
Free
I’m free
To go where I don’t choose to go
Following my feet, my nose, my gut
Protuberances and instincts outranking the map
Demoting it to fourth, at best
Its time will come though
To guide me back to the car
And to freedom-lite that is everyday life
So free
Descending through watering eyes
Picking a line through the outcrops
A line of most assistance, for there is no resistance
In what is innately irresistible
So there’s no need to choose between any of it
Just the freedom to go and keep going
Until you have to come back
Thanks. That was lovely.
Yeap. Nice one. That's what its all about for many of us.
Am Yisrael Chai
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