ladylinda
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April
Apr 30, 2014 10:15:12 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 30, 2014 10:15:12 GMT -5
Nightingales
Robert Bridges
Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye came, And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom Ye learn your song: Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there, Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air Bloom the year long!
Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams: Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams, A throe of the heart, Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound, No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound, For all our art.
Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then, As night is withdrawn From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May, Dream, while the innumerable choir of day Welcome the dawn.
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ladylinda
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July 2011 Member of the Month, May 2014 Member of the Month
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April
Apr 30, 2014 10:16:12 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 30, 2014 10:16:12 GMT -5
In Perpetual Spring
Amy Gerstler
Gardens are also good places to sulk. You pass beds of spiky voodoo lilies and trip over the roots of a sweet gum tree, in search of medieval plants whose leaves, when they drop off turn into birds if they fall on land, and colored carp if they plop into water.
Suddenly the archetypal human desire for peace with every other species wells up in you. The lion and the lamb cuddling up. The snake and the snail, kissing. Even the prick of the thistle, queen of the weeds, revives your secret belief in perpetual spring, your faith that for every hurt there is a leaf to cure it.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 30, 2014 10:18:43 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 30, 2014 10:18:43 GMT -5
The Late Wisconsin Spring
John Koethe
Snow melts into the earth and a gentle breeze Loosens the damp gum wrappers, the stale leaves Left over from autumn, and the dead brown grass. The sky shakes itself out. And the invisible birds Winter put away somewhere return, the air relaxes, People start to circulate again in twos and threes. The dominant feelings are the blue sky, and the year. —Memories of other seasons and the billowing wind; The light gradually altering from difficult to clear As a page melts and a photograph develops in the backyard. When some men came to tear down the garage across the way The light was still clear, but the salt intoxication Was already dissipating into the atmosphere of constant day April brings, between the isolation and the flowers. Now the clouds are lighter, the branches are frosted green, And suddenly the season that had seemed so tentative before Becomes immediate, so clear the heart breaks and the vibrant Air is laced with crystal wires leading back from hell. Only the distraction, and the exaggerated sense of care Here at the heart of spring—all year long these feelings Alternately wither and bloom, while a dense abstraction Hides them. But now the mental dance of solitude resumes, And life seems smaller, placed against the background Of this story with the empty, moral quality of an expansive Gesture made up out of trees and clouds and air.
The loneliness comes and goes, but the blue holds, Permeating the early leaves that flutter in the sunlight As the air dances up and down the street. Some kids yell. A white dog rolls over on the grass and barks once. And Although the incidents vary and the principal figures change, Once established, the essential tone and character of a season Stays inwardly the same day after day, like a person’s. The clouds are frantic. Shadows sweep across the lawn And up the side of the house. A dappled sky, a mild blue Watercolor light that floats the tense particulars away As the distraction starts. Spring here is at first so wary, And then so spare that even the birds act like strangers, Trying out the strange air with a hesitant chirp or two, And then subsiding. But the season intensifies by degrees, Imperceptibly, while the colors deepen out of memory, The flowers bloom and the thick leaves gleam in the sunlight Of another city, in a past which has almost faded into heaven. And even though memory always gives back so much more of What was there than the mind initially thought it could hold, Where will the separation and the ache between the isolated Moments go when summer comes and turns this all into a garden? Spring here is too subdued: the air is clear with anticipation, But its real strength lies in the quiet tension of isolation And living patiently, without atonement or regret, In the eternity of the plain moments, the nest of care —Until suddenly, all alone, the mind is lifted upward into Light and air and the nothingness of the sky, Held there in that vacant, circumstantial blue until, In the vehemence of a landscape where all the colors disappear, The quiet absolution of the spirit quickens into fact, And then, into death. But the wind is cool. The buds are starting to open on the trees. Somewhere up in the sky an airplane drones.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 30, 2014 10:19:58 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 30, 2014 10:19:58 GMT -5
The Dosser in Springtime
Douglas Stewart
That girl from the sun is bathing in the creek, Says the white old dosser in the cave. It’s a sight worth seeing though your old frame’s weak; Her clothes are on the wattle and it’s gold all over, And if I was twenty I’d try to be her lover, Says the white old dosser in the creek.
If I was twenty I’d chase her back to Bourke, Says the white old dosser in the cave. My swag on my shoulder and a haughty eye for work, I’d chase her to the sunset where the desert burns and reels, With an old blue dog full of fleas at my heels, Says the white old dosser in the cave.
I’d chase her back to Bourke again, I’d chase her back to Alice, Says the white old dosser in the cave, And I’d drop upon her sleeping like a beauty in a palace With the sunset wrapped around her and a black snake keeping watch – She’s lovely and she’s naked but she’s very hard to catch, Says the white old dosser in the cave.
I’ve been cooling here for years with the gum-trees wet and weird, Says the white old dosser in the cave. My head grew lichens and moss was my beard, The creek was in my brain and a bullfrog in my belly, The she-oaks washed their hair in me all down the gloomy gully, Says the white old dosser in the cave.
My eyes were full of water and my ears were stopped with bubbles, Says the white old dosser in the cave. Yabbies raised their claws in me or skulked behind the pebbles. The water-beetle loved his wife, he chased her round and round – I thought I’d never see a girl unless I found one drowned, Says the white old dosser in the cave.
Many a time I laughed aloud to stop my heart from thumping, Says the white old dosser in the cave. I saw my laugh I saw my laugh I saw my laugh go jumping Like a jaunty old goanna with his tail up stiff Till he dived like a stone in the pool below the cliff, Says the white old dosser in the cave.
There’s a fine bed of bracken, the billy boils beside her, Says the white old dosser in the cave. But no one ever ate with me except the loathsome spider, And no one ever lay with me beside the sandstone wall Except the pallid moonlight and she’s no good at all, Says the white old dosser in the cave.
But now she’s in the creek again, that woman made of flame, Says the white old dosser in the cave. By cripes, if I was twenty I’d stop her little game. Her dress is on the wattle – I’d take it off and hide it; And when she sought that golden dress, I’d lay her down beside it, Says the white old dosser in the cave.
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ladylinda
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July 2011 Member of the Month, May 2014 Member of the Month
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April
Apr 30, 2014 10:20:50 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 30, 2014 10:20:50 GMT -5
Earliest Spring
William Dean Howells
Tossing his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles, Lion-like March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath, Through all the moaning chimneys and ‘thwart all the hollows and angles Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and death.
But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadow Thrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres that lift Bud and blade to the sunward, within the inscrutable shadow, Deep in the oak’s chill core, under the gathering drift.
Nay, to earth’s life in mine some prescience, or dream, or desire, (How shall I name it aright?) comes for a moment and goes – Rapture of life ineffable, perfect – as if in the brier, Leafless there by my door, trembled a sense of the rose..
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 30, 2014 17:41:52 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 30, 2014 17:41:52 GMT -5
I thought for my final contribution to the Spring/April theme I'd post a song with some great lyrics.
Frank Sinatra - You Make Me Feel So Young
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 3, 2015 10:44:55 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 3, 2015 10:44:55 GMT -5
A Good Friday poem:
Good Friday is not a holiday
Frank James Ryan
Good Friday is not a holiday Holidays are days to celebrate, chow-down as opposed to abstain, mix and pour a carafe of spirits, click glasses, and toast to the day.
Good Friday has no place for this- whether or not you believe that the Man who was nailed to a Cross, and resurrected two days later was Almighty God, Himself. For it is fact that Jesus Christ did exist and was crucified in 33AD, for accomplishing many things that were inexplicable, and altruistic in every sense of Providence.
And for that fact alone, this day called Good Friday should be at worst, well respected, and never celebrated, nor labeled... 'holiday'.
Come Friday, as a Christian I must atone for this poem, for the Man on that Cross who I believe to be my God would tell me to go forward, and turn the other cheek, place my pen and paper down, pray for comfort, pray for peace. My wish to all you here is all of this and more, as this is what He taught me, and for this my heart feels warm.
Good Friday Is Not A Holiday Good Friday is a High Holy Day. Good Friday is a day that lives forever.
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