Writing a recent piece referencing the town I grew up in, the phrase "pretty how town" popped into my head. Some see this poem as a negative picture of mid-century Middle American towns like mine. I see it as a cautionary tale.
anyone lived in a pretty how town
E. E. Cummings - 1894-1962 Read more about Sun Moon Stars Rain
Read more about No Songs in Winter>The sky is gray as gray may be,
There is no bird upon the bough,
There is no leaf on vine or tree.In the Neponset marshes now
Willow-stems, rosy in the wind,
Shiver with hidden sense of snow.So too 't is winter in my mind,
No light-winged fancy comes and stays:
A season churlish and unkind.
By MARY OLIVER
In winter
all the singing is in
the tops of the trees
where the wind-bird
with its white eyes
shoves and pushes
among the branches.
Like any of us Read more about White Eyes
The first two verses will give you the gist of the thing. The rest spells out a Halloween night of the "merry, friendly, country-folks" in Scottish dialect, if you're up for the full adventure.
Robert Burns - 1759-1796 Read more about Halloween
Walker Art Center
Minneapolis
Alexander Calder Exhibit
Read more about Kinetic>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.
Song Of Aragorn
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
J.R.R. Tolkien Read more about A Little Gold for August
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorpes, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever. Read more about The Brook
I had forgotten or perhaps had never noticed that this is an April poem. I've always liked it, though.
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did.
Women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain Read more about Earth by April