Love Poems

[Saffron]

Here is a chunk from Camille Guthrie's poem My Boyfriend. I heard it read by the author on Poetry Off the Shelf (for link go to On Poetry thread). Gurthrie gives a nod to Walt Whitman in a line of the poem, in it's celebration of the body and in the form the poem takes; a catalog. The poem is compared to Whitman's "The Sleepers."

Especially for DWill (who now bears a remarkable resemblance to WW -- at least by what we can tell from his avatar).

From My Boyfriend by Camille Guthrie

shoulder blades like kitchen tables
a chest like a stuffed animal
pectorals like floating bars of soap
shoulders like observed facts
arms like lassos
fingers like sparklers
wrist bones like a shipyard
elbows like antidotes
hands like passports
an Adam’s apple like a great circle course
a beard like Whitman’s
a chin like a lichen-splotched rock
ears like a full bathtub
a nose like a birdcage

[realiz]

A Sudden Encounter

My mind paused, seeing someone I knew
touched with the solemnity of the unknown.

I think I remember GentleReader suggesting I Won’t Let you Go, Selected Poems by Tagore. This is really good.

[Saffron]

I think I remember GentleReader suggesting I Won’t Let you Go, Selected Poems by Tagore. This is really good.

What has become of GentalReader? She seems to have left us.

[giselle]

I've been reading this Tagore book of poems (I Won't Let You Go, Selected poems) on Penelope's recommendation who described his writing as sublime. The book has a biography at the front and a great collection of poems. He had a very interesting life and is such a compassionate poet.

[Penelope]

A compassionate man!

I also recommend:-

The Fugitive
The Gardener
Fruit-Gathering

All by Rabindranath Tagore

It is ironic that I am at present absorbed in Richard Dawkins.....
who says we originate from African Apes...

But, our souls' development, perhaps comes from India.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps......

I'm glad our beautiful Tagore is being appreciated.

Thank you......giselle.

[realiz]

Here is another short one by Tagore that we can appreciate.

The Gardener
by Rabindranath Tagore


If you would have it so,
I will end my singing.
If it sets your heart aflutter,
I will take away my eyes from your face.
If it suddenly startles you in your walk,
I will step aside and take another path.
If it confuses you in your flower-weaving,
I will shun your lonely garden.
If it makes the water wanton and wild,
I will not row my boat by your bank

[giselle]

Another beautiful Tagore poem. I appreciate it.

[Penelope]

I think you're being cheeky......just because I said, 'appreciate'.

Just for that, I'll share my favourite bit of Tagore......but don't ask me why I love it so much, because I don't know. Makes me cry though!

I was walking along a path overgrown with grass, when suddenly I heard from some one behind, 'See if you know me?'

I turned round and looked at her and said, 'I cannot remember your name.'

She said, 'I am that first great Sorrow whom you met when you were young.'

Her eyes looked like a morning whose dew is still in the air.

I stood silent for some time till I said, 'Have you lost all the great burden of your tears?'

She smiled and said nothing. I felt that her tears had had time to learn the language of smiles.

'Once you said,' she whispered,'that you would cherish your grief for ever.'

I blushed and said, 'Yes, but years have passed and I forget.'

Then I took her hand in mine and said, 'But you have changed.'

'What was sorrow once has now become peace,' she said.

(I expect this rhymes in Bengali!!)

[Penelope]

Just one more please, please Saffron?

Then I promise I'll stop and keep it all to myself.

I think I shall stop startled if ever we meet after our next birth, walking in the light of a far-away world.

I shall know those dark eyes then as morning stars, and yet feel that they have belonged to some unremembered evening sky of a former life.

I shall know that the magic of your face is not all its own, but has stolen the passionate light that was in my eyes at some immemorial meeting, and then gathered from my love a mystery that has now forgotten its origin.

[Saffron]

Just one more please, please Saffron?

Then I promise I'll stop and keep it all to myself.

The Tagore poems are lovely! Penny post as many more as you like.