Poetry

In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD
(1872-1918) Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

The Edmund Fitzgerald went down in Lake Superior in November of 1975. The Third Assistant Engineer hailed from Sturgeon Bay. I had recently moved to Door County, just south of Sturgeon Bay. I never knew him, but later on I came to know people who knew people, so to speak. Sturgeon Bay is a ship building town. Read more about The Gales of November

Night Visitors

The Love for October
W. S. Merwin

A child looking at ruins grows younger
but cold
and wants to wake to a new name
I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring
walnut and may leaves the color
of shoulders at the end of summer
a month that has been to the mountain
and become light there
the long grass lies pointing uphill
even in death for a reason
that none of us knows
and the wren laughs in the early shade now

Clear and Colder - Boston Common

As I went down through the common,
It was bright with the light of day,
For the wind and rain had swept the leaves
And the shadow of summer away.
The walks were all fresh-blacked with rain
As I went briskly down -
I felt my own quick step begin
The pace of the winter town.

As I went down through the common,
The sky was wild and pale;
I saw one tree with a jib of leaves
In the stress of the aftergale;

Tasting the Wild Grapes
Mary Oliver

The red beast
who lives in the side of these hills
won’t come out for anything you have:
money or music. Still, there are moments
heavy with light and good luck. Walk
quietly under these tangled vines
and pay attention, and one morning
something will explode underfoot
like a branch of fire; one afternoon
something will flow down the hill

Especially when the October wind

Dylan Thomas

Especially when the October wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds,
Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
My busy heart who shudders as she talks
Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words. Read more about October Wind

And the Children of Birmingham
Thomas Merton

And the children of Birmingham
Walked into the story
Of Grandma's pointed teeth
("Better to love you with")
Reasonable citizens

Li Bai is a character, under another name, in Guy Gavriel Kay's reimagining of a story from the Tang Dynasty, . I wonder how it sounds in Chinese. And looking at the Chinese characters, if I could read them, would I see something untranslatable?

Drinking Alone by Moonlight

When I first began reading through the , I noticed what seemed to be an obsession with death. Then I thought that perhaps it wasn't so much an obsession as an integral part of her life experience. I wrote a little about that in one of my first Poetry page entries.

I'm still reading Emily once in a while. Chanced on this one a couple of days ago, and remembered why we love her so.

I taste a liquor never brewed --