favorite poem

[Trigg]

In Broken Images

 

He is quick, thinking in clear images;

I am slow, thinking in broken images.

He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;

I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images,

 

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;

Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

 

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact,

Questioning their relevance, I question the fact.

 

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;

When the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

 

He continues quick and dull in his clear images;

I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

 

He in a new confusion of his understanding;

I in a new understanding of my confusion.

[Guest hakkamike]

Robert Graves

[Trigg]

Yup, Graves-great poem if you really read it.

 

My favorite is an oldie but a goodie by Frost

 

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

 

 

Yup, all the difference

[John & Hai Yan]

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O, no! It is an ever fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his highth be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come.

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

 

William Shakespeare

[Trigg]

It's a shakespear sonnit---don't know the name??

[John & Hai Yan]

Right you are Trigg!

 

Sonnet 116

William Shakespeare

 

Probably the most quoted and most widely known of Shakespeare's 154 Sonnets.

[hypoclear]

Well I had to cheat.. google.. but here are a few I found worth while.

 

Geeez! i didn't know we were such a literate bunch..

 

There is an appointed time for everything.

And there is a time for every event under heaven -

A time to give birth, and a time to die;

A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.

- Ecclesiastes, 3:1-2

 

Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence

Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance

Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence

Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.

- Yoko Ono, Season of Glass

 

 

 

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of

strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something

infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature— the assurance

that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.

- Rachel Carson

 

 

 

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting

and autumn a mosaic of them all.

- Stanley Horowitz

 

 

 

This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere;

the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling;

vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal

dawn and glowing, on sea and continues and islands, each

in its turn, as the round earth rolls.

- John Muir

 

 

 

Only the ephemeral is of lasting value.

- Ionesco

 

 

To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.

- George Orwell

 

 

 

 

Mark and Bea

[cosmiclobster]

Mark and Bea: Nice ones! Being a lover of nature, I especially liked Carson, Horowitz and (or course) Muir. Thank you!!!

[sylinchinastill]

You Fit Into Me

you fit into me

like a hook into an eye

 

a fish hook

an open eye

Margaret Atwood

 

Persimmons

by Li-Young Lee

In sixth grade Mrs. Walker

slapped the back of my head

and made me stand in the corner

for not knowing the difference

between persimmon and precision.

How to choose

persimmons. This is precision.

Ripe ones are soft and brown-spotted.

Sniff the bottoms. The sweet one

will be fragrant. How to eat:

put the knife away, lay down the newspaper.

Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat.

Chew on the skin, suck it,

and swallow. Now, eat

the meat of the fruit,

so sweet

all of it, to the heart.

 

Donna undresses, her stomach is white.

In the yard, dewy and shivering

with crickets, we lie naked,

face-up, face-down,

I teach her Chinese. Crickets: chiu chiu. Dew: I've forgotten.

Naked: I've forgotten.

Ni, wo: you me.

I part her legs,

remember to tell her

she is beautiful as the moon.

 

Other words

that got me into trouble were

fight and fright, wren and yarn.

Fight was what I did when I was frightened,

fright was what I felt when I was fighting.

Wrens are small, plain birds,

yarn is what one knits with.

Wrens are soft as yarn.

My mother made birds out of yarn.

I loved to watch her tie the stuff;

a bird, a rabbit, a wee man.

 

Mrs. Walker brought a persimmon to class

and cut it up

so everyone could taste

a Chinese apple. Knowing

it wasn't ripe or sweet, I didn't eat

but watched the other faces.

 

 

My mother said every persimmon has a sun

inside, something golden, glowing,

warm as my face.

 

Once, in the cellar, I found two wrapped in newspaper

forgotten and not yet ripe.

I took them and set them both on my bedroom windowsill,

where each morning a cardinal

sang. The sun, the sun.

 

Finally understanding

he was going blind,

my father would stay up all one night

waiting for a song, a ghost.

I gave him the persimmons, swelled, heavy as sadness,

and sweet as love.

 

This year, in the muddy lighting

of my parents' cellar, I rummage, looking

for something I lost.

My father sits on the tired, wooden stairs,

black cane between his knees,

hand over hand, gripping the handle.

 

He's so happy that I've come home.

I ask how his eyes are, a stupid question.

All gone, he answers.

 

Under some blankets, I find three scrolls.

I sit beside him and untie

three paintings by my father:

Hibiscus leaf and a white flower.

Two cats preening.

Two persimmons, so full they want to drop from the cloth.

 

He raises both hands to touch the cloth,

asks, Which is this?

 

This is persimmons, Father.

 

Oh, the feel of the wolftail on the silk,

the strength, the tense

precision in the wrist.

I painted them hundreds of times

eyes closed. These I painted blind.

Some things never leave a person:

scent of the hair of one you love,

the texture of persimmons,

in your palm, the ripe weight.

[Trigg]

Well, after reading and re-reading that one- me thinks I need go see the wife for a few moments.--do loves dem persimmons

[jkobman]

How about a one-liner from humorist Ogden Nash?

 

I love work, I can sit and look at it all day.

[Guest DragonFlower]

While I was walking along Frost's forest path

 

 

 

fallen along the winding trail

the crisp autumn leaves linger

flashing their colors at the sun

dressing the earth in bright clothes

to wait for the cold of winter

 

for my wife

[Guest DragonFlower]

A thought towards our families

 

 

 

 

I stood very still,gazing out over the neat rows of fragile white markers

 

It is so quiet,here in the Punchbowl ,insulated from the noisy city below

 

Here in the caldera of some long dead volcanoe,lie not long dead warriors

 

I ponder my very existence and the luck that has allowed me to tarry here,under blue skies

 

On that day,long ago,my father was at sea,by some twist of fate

 

Or perhaps he would lie here,with his eternally sleeping comrades

 

I stood very still,gazing out over the friends and family that gathered at the crest of the hill

 

The grain of the oaken wood,that I have chosen to convey his remains,sings to me of nature and life

 

The report of the salute,rings in my ears,the crisp snap,as the flag is folded

 

A hero's honor's,for a man,who did nothing more than a hundred thousand others

 

Perhaps,I am sure,they were all hero's,in their own way and their own time

 

Only fate,says which will die soon and which will die late

 

I stood very still,gazing out over my life,what will fate have for me?

 

for my father--

[cosmiclobster]

Dragon Flower: VERY nice - Thank you

[Martytb]

I find it very ironic and romantic that you fine gentlemen have entwined yourselves in a culture that reveres poetry.

Please post some Chinese poetry, which is quite different from the Western style.

I have read a great deal about the Chinese love for poetry, but have not had the chance to read any. I only know that they do not rhyme words.