Poem of the Day

[Bad JuJu]

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver, "Dream Work" 1986.

My yoga teacher read this poem last Friday! She always reads a poem as we begin our practice, and she uses Mary Oliver's a lot. I love Oliver!

I esp. love that bit about letting "the soft animal of your body/ love what it loves"--ahhhhhhh...........

[Bad JuJu]

Sleep

The young dog would like to know
why we sit so long in one place
intent on a box that makes the same
noises and has no smell whatever.
Get out! Get out! we tell him
when he asks us by licking the back
of our hand, which has small hairs,
almost like his. Other times he finds us
motionless with papers in our lap,
or at a desk looking into a humming
square of light. Soon the dog understands
we are not looking, exactly, but sleeping
with our eyes open, then goes to sleep
himself. Is it us he cries out to,
moving his legs somewhere beyond
the rooms where we spend our lives?
We don't think to ask, upset
as we are in the end with the dog,
who has begun throwing the old,
shabby coat of himself down on every
floor or rug in the apartment, sleep,
we say, all that damn dog does is sleep.

Wesley McNair, 2002

[KnottedYet]

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song
A medley of extemporanea
And love is a thing that can never go wrong
And I am Marie of Roumania

--Dorothy Parker

[Kitsune06]

THE BODY grows outside,—
The more convenient way,—
That if the spirit like to hide,
Its temple stands alway

Ajar, secure, inviting; 5
It never did betray
The soul that asked its shelter
In timid honesty.
-Emily D!ckinson

[margo49]

Ah... our solitary friend of great insight and sensitivity!

[enzed]

Alfred Lord Tennyson - Break Break Break


Break, break, break
On thy cold grey stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.


I studied this poetry in 5th Form English. It's a rather sad poem, I suppose it's a reflection of the poet's life (which was not always a happy one)
There's this quant cementry overlooking a valley near where I grew up. On one of the headstones, the third verse is quoted. [But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!]
It's quite sad yet romantic - A story of a lost love

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Another of my fav poets, whom I studied at school, is Wilfred Owen.
Whilst the poems have a sad overtone, they give a clear message - war is furtile

Anthem for Doomed Youth
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
-Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.


What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds

[KnottedYet]

I like that the last line takes on some of the metric qualities of the last measures of "Taps". ( **- feet rather than *- feet)