ladylinda
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April
Apr 17, 2014 15:08:34 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 17, 2014 15:08:34 GMT -5
Another poem by a poet I admire a lot - Elizabeth Bishop. She takes Hopkins' poem on spring as her starting point and creates something characteristically original of her own by way of a response.
A Cold Spring
By Elizabeth Bishop
Nothing is so beautiful as spring. -Hopkins
A cold spring: the violet was flawed on the lawn. For two weeks or more the trees hesitated; the little leaves waited, carefully indicating their characteristics. Finally a grave green dust settled over your big and aimless hills. One day, in a chill white blast of sunshine, on the side of one a calf was born. The mother stopped lowing and took a long time eating the after-birth, a wretched flag, but the calf got up promptly and seemed inclined to feel gay.
dogwood1The next day was much warmer. Greenish-white dogwood infiltrated the wood, each petal burned, apparently, by a cigarette-butt; and the blurred redbud stood beside it, motionless, but almost more like movement than any placeable color. Four deer practiced leaping over your fences. The infant oak-leaves swung through the sober oak. Song-sparrows were wound up for the summer, and in the maple the complementary cardinal cracked a whip, and the sleeper awoke, stretching miles of green limbs from the south. white_lilacIn his cap the lilacs whitened, then one day they fell like snow. Now, in the evening, a new moon comes. The hills grow softer. Tufts of long grass show where each cow-flop lies. The bull-frogs are sounding, slack strings plucked by heavy thumbs. Beneath the light, against your white front door, the smallest moths, like Chinese fans, flatten themselves, silver and silver-gilt over pale yellow, orange, or gray. Now, from the thick grass, the fireflies begin to rise: up, then down, then up again: lit on the ascending flight, drifting simultaneously to the same height, –exactly like the bubbles in champagne. –Later on they rise much higher. And your shadowy pastures will be able to offer these particular glowing tributes every evening now throughout the summer.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 17, 2014 16:55:03 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 17, 2014 16:55:03 GMT -5
Another excuse to post something by Carlos Williams - not that I need one; I just love this guy's work!
March
William Carlos Williams
I Winter is long in this climate and spring—a matter of a few days only,—a flower or two picked from mud or from among wet leaves or at best against treacherous bitterness of wind, and sky shining teasingly, then closing in black and sudden, with fierce jaws.
II March, you remind me of the pyramids, our pyramids— stript of the polished stone that used to guard them! March, you are like Fra Angelico at Fiesole, painting on plaster!
March, you are like a band of young poets that have not learned the blessedness of warmth (or have forgotten it).
At any rate— I am moved to write poetry for the warmth there is in it and for the loneliness— a poem that shall have you in it March.
III See! Ashur-ban-i-pal, the archer king, on horse-back, in blue and yellow enamel! with drawn bow—facing lions standing on their hind legs, fangs bared! his shafts bristling in their necks!
Sacred bulls—dragons in embossed brickwork marching—in four tiers— along the sacred way to Nebuchadnezzar’s throne hall! They shine in the sun, they that have been marching— marching under the dust of ten thousand dirt years.
Now— they are coming into bloom again! See them! marching still, bared by the storms from my calendar —winds that blow back the sand! winds that enfilade dirt! winds that by strange craft have whipt up a black army that by pick and shovel bare a procession to the god, Marduk!
Natives cursing and digging for pay unearth dragons with upright tails and sacred bulls alternately— in four tiers— lining the way to an old altar! Natives digging at old walls— digging me warmth—digging me sweet loneliness— high enamelled walls.
IV My second spring— passed in a monastery with plaster walls—in Fiesole on the hill above Florence.
My second spring—painted a virgin—in a blue aureole sitting on a three-legged stool, arms crossed— she is intently serious, and still watching an angel with coloured wings half kneeling before her— and smiling—the angel’s eyes holding the eyes of Mary as a snake’s holds a bird’s. On the ground there are flowers, trees are in leaf.
V But! now for the battle! Now for murder—now for the real thing! My third springtime is approaching! Winds! lean, serious as a virgin, seeking, seeking the flowers of March.
Seeking flowers nowhere to be found, they twine among the bare branches in insatiable eagerness— they whirl up the snow seeking under it— they—the winds—snakelike roar among yellow reeds seeking flowers—flowers.
I spring among them seeking one flower in which to warm myself!
I deride with all the ridicule of misery— my own starved misery.
Counter-cutting winds strike against me refreshing their fury!
Come, good, cold fellows! Have we no flowers? Defy then with even more desperation than ever—being lean and frozen!
But though you are lean and frozen— think of the blue bulls of Babylon.
Fling yourselves upon their empty roses— cut savagely!
But— think of the painted monastery at Fiesole.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 19, 2014 18:34:20 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 19, 2014 18:34:20 GMT -5
Here's one by old Walt (no, not Disney, Whitman!)
These I, Singing in Spring
Walt Whitman
These, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers, (For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy? And who but I should be the poet of comrades?) Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world—but soon I pass the gates, Now along the pond-side—now wading in a little, fearing not the wet, Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there, pick’d from the fields, have accumulated, Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and partly cover them— Beyond these I pass, Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go, Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence, Alone I had thought—yet soon a silent troop gathers around me, Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck, They, the spirits of friends, dead or alive—thicker they come, a great crowd, and I in the middle, Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them, Plucking something for tokens—tossing toward whoever is near me; Here! lilac, with a branch of pine, Here out of my pocket, some moss which I pull’d off a live-oak in Florida, as it hung trailing down, Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage, And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pond-side, (O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me—and returns again, never to separate from me, And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades—this Calamus-root shall, Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!) And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut, And stems of currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar: These, I, compass’d around by a thick cloud of spirits, Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me, Indicating to each one what he shall have—giving something to each; But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve, I will give of it—but only to them that love, as I myself am capable of loving.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 19, 2014 18:37:26 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 19, 2014 18:37:26 GMT -5
Here's a rather uncharacteristic one by Carl Sandburg:
Three Spring Notations on Bipeds
Carl Sandburg
1
The down drop of the blackbird, The wing catch of arrested flight, The stop midway and then off: off for triangles, circles, loops of new hieroglyphs— This is April’s way: a woman: “O yes, I’m here again and your heart knows I was coming.”
2
White pigeons rush at the sun, A marathon of wing feats is on: “Who most loves danger? Who most loves wings? Who somersaults for God’s sake in the name of wing power in the sun and blue on an April Thursday.” So ten winged heads, ten winged feet, race their white forms over Elmhurst. They go fast: once the ten together were a feather of foam bubble, a chrysanthemum whirl speaking to silver and azure.
3
The child is on my shoulders. In the prairie moonlight the child’s legs hang over my shoulders. She sits on my neck and I hear her calling me a good horse. She slides down—and into the moon silver of a prairie stream She throws a stone and laughs at the clug-clug.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 19, 2014 18:44:04 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 19, 2014 18:44:04 GMT -5
Snowdrops
Louise Glück
So you know what I was, how I lived? You know what despair is; then winter should have meaning for you.
I did not expect to survive, earth suppressing me. I didn't expect to waken again, to feel in damp earth my body able to respond again, remembering after so long how to open again in the cold light of earliest spring--
afraid, yes, but among you again crying yes risk joy
in the raw wind of the new world.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 19, 2014 18:49:30 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 19, 2014 18:49:30 GMT -5
Here's one by Langston Hughes.
April Rain Song
Langston Hughes
Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby. The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk. The rain makes running pools in the gutter. The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night— And I love the rain.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 20, 2014 15:44:38 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 20, 2014 15:44:38 GMT -5
Always Marry an April Girl
Ogden Nash
Praise the spells and bless the charms, I found April in my arms. April golden, April cloudy, Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy; April soft in flowered languor, April cold with sudden anger, Ever changing, ever true — I love April, I love you.
[Speaking as an April girl myself how could I possibly resist this one?]
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 20, 2014 15:45:00 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 20, 2014 15:45:00 GMT -5
Spring Air
Matsuo Bashō
Spring air -- Woven moon And plum scent.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 20, 2014 15:45:24 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 20, 2014 15:45:24 GMT -5
Dear Grif
Louisa May Alcott
"Dear Grif, Here is a whiff Of beautiful spring flowers; The big red rose Is for your nose, As toward the sky it towers.
"Oh, do not frown Upon this crown Of green pinks and blue geranium But think of me When this you see, And put it on your cranium."
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 21, 2014 11:06:16 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 21, 2014 11:06:16 GMT -5
Spring in the Classroom
Mary Oliver
Elbows on dry books, we dreamed Past Miss Willow Bangs, and lessons, and windows, To catch all day glimpses and guesses of the greening woodlot, Its secrets and increases, Its hidden nests and kind. And what warmed in us was no book-learning, But the old mud blood murmuring, Loosening like petals from bone sleep. So spring surrounded the classroom, and we suffered to be kept indoors, Droned through lessons, carved when we could with jackknives Our pulsing initials into the desks, and grew Angry to be held so, without pity and beyond reason, By Miss Willow Bangs, her eyes two stones behind glass, Her legs thick, her heart In love with pencils and arithmetic.
So it went — one gorgeous day lost after another While we sat like captives and breathed the chalky air And the leaves thickened and birds called From the edge of the world — till it grew easy to hate, To plot mutiny, even murder. Oh, we had her in chains, We had her hanged and cold, in our longing to be gone! And then one day, Miss Willow Bangs, we saw you As we ran wild in our three o’clock escape Past the abandoned swings; you were leaning All furry and blooming against the old brick wall In the Art Teacher’s arms.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 21, 2014 11:06:46 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 21, 2014 11:06:46 GMT -5
And When the Green Man Comes
John Haines
The man is clothed in birchbark, small birds cling to his limbs and one builds a nest in his ear
The clamor of bedlam infests his hair, a wind blowing in his head shakes down a thought that turns to moss and lichen at his feet
His eyes are blind with April, his breath distilled of butterflies and bees, and in his beard the maggot sings
He comes again with litter of chips and empty cans, his shoes full of mud and dung;
an army of shedding dogs attends him, the valley shudders where he stands, redolent of roses, exalted in the streaming rain
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 21, 2014 11:07:19 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 21, 2014 11:07:19 GMT -5
Cup-marked stone
Peter Campbell
The spring sogs out within the moss, The muir is grey from last year's burning. No breathless view onto the coast, The woods of Banff are slyly turning their colours to man's face soon lost.
A minute's span I would have gone never to give this dreichness trace until I saw the glacial stone two cup-marks graven on it.
Upon this vast haunch of Drumdearg, beyond King Malcolm's hunt meet at High Corb, before that man and mountainside had name, a further man had found spring-haunted stone and marked it with a sign.
I trace the cup-mark lines the rims pecked out by algae and the sharp beaks of rain the rock blotched purple with decay sticky as if with ancient berry stain.
This spring, only a hand's hollow on a moorland some stocksman with a mason's grace had known and marked it out to followers as special place of a singular magic.
The goose grass flicks clouds cuddle the lank shoulders of the hiull. The seed is passed to me, watching the loosed secrets of Banff's dry loams to hold this history of grey Drumdearg unless no other comes.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 22, 2014 9:07:49 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 22, 2014 9:07:49 GMT -5
May with its light behaving
W H Auden
May with its light behaving Stirs vessle, eye, and limb; The singular and sad Are willing to recover, And to the swan-delighting river The careless picnics come, The living white and red.
The dead remote and hooded In their enclosures rest; but we From the vague woods have broken, Forests where children meet And the white angel-vampires flit; We stand with shaded eye, The dangerous apple taken.
The real world lies before us, Animal motions of the young, The common wish for death, The pleasured and the haunted; The dying master sinks tormented In the admirers' ring; The unjust walk the earth.
And love that makes impatient The tortoise and the roe, and lays The blonde beside the dark, Urges upon our blood, Before the evil and the good How insufficient is The endearment and the look.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 22, 2014 9:08:10 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 22, 2014 9:08:10 GMT -5
Before Invasion, 1940
John Betjeman
Still heavy with may, and the sky ready to fall, Meadows buttercup high, shed and chicken and wire? And here where the wind leans on a sycamore silver wall, Are you still taller than sycamore, gallant Victorian spire?
Still, fairly intact, and demolishing squads about, Bracketed station lamp with your oil-light taken away? Weep flowering currant, while your bitter cascades are out, Born in an age of railways, for flowering into today!
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 22, 2014 9:08:45 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 22, 2014 9:08:45 GMT -5
Aftersong
Peter Campbell
The trees stand blackly, line by line. There'll be another spring but in a new time. The clock of man's pulse had been overwound the world will swell again but not with our sound.
The fir, the gorse, the bog-tied thistle, the croaking frog, the plover's whistle - as advocate they never sought our brief. But still we scorched them with the judgement of our unrestrained beliefs.
Along the sloblands of the steaming sea the seaweed crackles as the light pulls free The monolith endures, the unintelligible arch which means to teach the skies that man was here and this was his mark.
But on the darkness of the darkened moors the feral cat and mink have left their spoors, and on their fur the blood of rodents flecked though not the noose of balanced laws man tied around his neck.
And soon the becks and ghylls will sing - is it with sound of laughter? For this is one world that was man's disaster There'll be a summer, winter, spring and fall the colours changed, the beetle still will crawl and then a peace on earth may be. A peace. But only after.
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