Michelle is another of my close, long-term blog-friends. Emails fly back and forth between Rhode Island and Louisiana; she's an integral part of my support system, even though we've never met in person. (Why is that? We need to work on that.) I love that the poem she chose to share so perfectly reflects our shared habit of worrying a bit too much.
We all know of Ralph Waldo Emerson the Transcendentalist lecturer and essayist (of whom I'm a fan, most days), but Emerson the poet is less well known. I must admit, I can see why. But there is one little gem that I am always drawn to. It's a simple quatrain (four line stanza with a rhyming pattern), which appeals to my short attention span. Any time I'm feeling particularly anxious (particularly on...days that end in -y ?), I can read this poem and, while I feel I should be so darn angry at it for mocking me...I smile anyway. I think I might have to place this one on the cover of my planner or frame it above my desk.
Borrowing: From the French
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some of the hurts you have cured,
And the sharpest you still have survived,
But what torments of grief you endured
From evils which never arrived!
***
Don't forget that tomorrow is Poem in Your Pocket Day! And I'll be hosting a modest little give-away to celebrate one year of blogging in this particular space.
Yet another craft blog...
Showing posts with label guest post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guest post. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
Guest Poetry Post: Bells
Bells is one of my oldest, closest blog-friends. I believe the first post of hers that I read contained photos of lovely growing things in her Australian garden, just as we were entering winter here in the Northern Hemisphere. I was hooked. Her photos have continued to delight, and she knits and sews and writes beautifully, too. I'm so glad she agreed to share a favorite poem here this month.
Judith Wright is a beloved Australian poet. She was a thinker and an activist - most notably for the environment and for Indigenous people. She began to go deaf as a young woman and was completely deaf by 1992. The last years of her life were spent living in the small town, Braidwood, just outside Canberra, where I live. She died in 2000.
I chose this poem a couple of weeks ago for Amy, but I realised as I re-read it that it tied in nicely with the the Mary Oliver poem that she posted a few days ago, highlighting the line, "Tell me, what it is you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?"
In the autumn of their lives, these sisters are looking back on their own wild and precious lives and treasuring the richness of what is behind them.
The Sisters
by Judith Wright
In the vine-shadows on the veranda;
under the yellow leaves, in the cooling sun,
sit two sisters. Their slow voices run
like little winter creeks, dwindled by frost and wind,
and the square of sunlight moves on the veranda.
They remember the gay young men on their tall horses
who came courting; the dancing and the smells of leather
and wine, the girls whispering by the fire together;
even their dolls and ponies, all they have left behind
moves in the yellow shadows on the veranda.
Thinking of their lives apart and the men they married
thinking of the marriage-bed and the birth of their first
child,
they look down smiling. “My life was wide and wild,
and who can know my heart? There in that golden jungle
I walk alone,” say the old sisters on the veranda.
Judith Wright is a beloved Australian poet. She was a thinker and an activist - most notably for the environment and for Indigenous people. She began to go deaf as a young woman and was completely deaf by 1992. The last years of her life were spent living in the small town, Braidwood, just outside Canberra, where I live. She died in 2000.
I chose this poem a couple of weeks ago for Amy, but I realised as I re-read it that it tied in nicely with the the Mary Oliver poem that she posted a few days ago, highlighting the line, "Tell me, what it is you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?"
In the autumn of their lives, these sisters are looking back on their own wild and precious lives and treasuring the richness of what is behind them.
The Sisters
by Judith Wright
In the vine-shadows on the veranda;
under the yellow leaves, in the cooling sun,
sit two sisters. Their slow voices run
like little winter creeks, dwindled by frost and wind,
and the square of sunlight moves on the veranda.
They remember the gay young men on their tall horses
who came courting; the dancing and the smells of leather
and wine, the girls whispering by the fire together;
even their dolls and ponies, all they have left behind
moves in the yellow shadows on the veranda.
Thinking of their lives apart and the men they married
thinking of the marriage-bed and the birth of their first
child,
they look down smiling. “My life was wide and wild,
and who can know my heart? There in that golden jungle
I walk alone,” say the old sisters on the veranda.
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