Poetry

At first I thought this lovely poem by Emily Dickinson was one of the few I've read so far that didn't reference death in some way. But a second look at the one I call Second Summer convinces me that Emily does not mistake signs of life for life itself.

These are the days when Birds come back --
A very few -- a Bird or two --
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies resume
The old -- old sophistries of June --

Channel surfing the other night, I came across the American Masters showing of The Day Carl Sandburg Died.

In the light of our current political climate, Sandburg is worth revisiting. Take this excerpt from:

The People, Yes
Carl Sandburg

The people yes
The people will live on.

The core of any people, any religion, lies in its poets. When we remember that, this contention will cease.

The Freshness

Rumi

When it's cold and raining,
you are more beautiful.

And the snow brings me
even closer to your lips.

The inner secret, that which was never born,
you are that freshness, and I am with you now.

I can't explain the goings,
or the comings. You enter suddenly,

Is there a song about September that isn't about loss?

September in the Rain

Here's Dinah Washington

The leaves of brown came tumbling down
Remember, in September, in the rain

Elegy IX: The Autumnal

By John Donne

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face.
Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape,
This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape.
If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame;
Affection here takes reverence's name.
Were her first years the golden age? That's true,
But now she's gold oft tried and ever new.
That was her torrid and inflaming time,

The Pinewoods

Mary Oliver

This morning
Two deer
In the pinewoods
In the five A.M. mist,

In a silky agitation,
Went leaping
Down into the shadows
Of the bog

And together
Across the bog
And up the hill
And into the dense trees --

But once
Years ago,
In some kind of rapturous mistake
The deer did not run away

But walked toward me
And touched my hands--
And I have been, ever since,
Separated from my old, comfortable life

Of experience and deduction--

Lughnasadh, August 1, the Celtic festival of the first harvest.

Fields of Gold
Sting

You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in fields of gold

So she took her love
For to gaze awhile
Upon the fields of barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold

Will you stay with me, will you be my love

Walker Art Center
Minneapolis
Alexander Calder Exhibit

Just people, you know -
Their shapes and sizes
And the things they do
With their hands;
How they move their feet and fingers,
All crossed and stretched and moving together;
The movement of faces,
Lifting lips and eyebrows.
Nodding and turning.
The free-form people, you know.
They were all there

.

Barbara Stoner
Poems from the Heartland Read more about At the Gallery

Longfellow month has come round again.

You see, every (or nearly every) morning, I do a few yoga poses. I can't say they have made me any more limber, but at this stage of the game, I'm afraid to stop. I'm afraid I'll just rust up. So I don't fool myself that I'm doing my body that much good. These days I do it for the poetry. Read more about How To Build a Canoe

Yes, back to the trees. Because where else do you go for shelter in high summer? And what better vision can there be for the last third of life than drilling for sweet honey in the rock?

Green Figs

By Edward Hirsch

I want to live like that little fig tree

that sprouted up at the beach last spring

and spread its leaves over the sandy rock.

All summer its stubborn green fruit

(tiny flowers covered with a soft skin)

ripened and grew in the bright salt spray.