Saturday, September 16, 2017
Saturday Poetry
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
--Wendell Berry
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4 comments:
Wonderful thought provoking prose.
As I read and reread, the imagery created for me allowed me to believe, to know, that things will be okay.
A beautiful post.
Peace and love...
Glad you're feeling a little better, shaw.
My sincere sympathy and best wishes.
____ The Darkling Thrush ___
I leant upon a coppice gate
___ When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
___ The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
___ Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
___ Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
___ The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
___ The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
___ Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
___ Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
___ The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
___ Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
___ In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
___ Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
___ Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
___ Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
___ His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
___ And I was unaware.
~ Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
___ Breakfast at the Old Auto Dealership ____
Rapture at radiance shining through plate glass ––
Earlier an automobile showroom ––
Gives power to dispel the thoughts of Doom
Overwhelming that so rarely pass.
Realizing petty things consume
Needlessly our very precious time ––
Edging timidly from the sublime ––
Hurtling inevitably towards the Tomb.
The inventive use of common space, like rhyme,
Enlivens as the sun glows in the hedges
Framing the old showroom with green ledges.
Elegant umbrellas red and lime ––
Romantic looking –– ensconced on the pavement ––
Transcend the nagging feelings of bereavement.
~ FreeThinke
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