Poem of the moment

[DWill]

What would we do without this guy, Frost? And how could anyone ever top this as a leaf-raking poem?

DWill

[lapdog]

With winter fast coming on, and the eternal need for love.....this short poem from the collection In All These Years I Never Met Anyone Real by Paul Judges, inspires me at the moment

DECEMBER ROSE

roses blooming
by the door
in early December

I bend
to inhale
sweet essence

I'm worried
that love's face
is always pale

though I must believe
it can survive
even frosts

[giselle]

lapdog .. thank you, I enjoyed this poem. unusual connection between love and winter. but maybe that connection should not be so unusual.

[Saffron]

I think it hits dead on. Love is much too small a word to hold all that it means to English speaking people. Love is a promise, as well as an emotion. Love as an emotion comes and goes. The poem captures both meanings.

[Saffron]

God Says Yes To Me
Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

[realiz]

Dawn
by Elizabeth Reninger

at this time
when the light is not yet
useful, merely
beautiful

when a bright
honey pours
nectar over a curved
horizon, into a nameless

chalice, and your vision
wakes also, as if
to meet it, touching
everything

when for an endless
moment all
colors are
this

color a shimmering
fabric an infinite
wisdom this

body
of pure love, so suddenly

your own. . .

[Saffron]

I just finished watching an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's "Under the Greenwood Tree". I must admit my guilty pleasure is 19th century British literature. My daughter informed me that the title comes from a William Shakespeare poem. So, here it is.

William Shakespeare. 1564

[Saffron]

With a little help from a congregation of clouds, it was nearly dark by 4:15 today. In 17 days we will be at the shortest day of the year -- hence the need for celebrations such as Advent and St. Lucia's Day (Dec. 13). This poem brings light into my darkening days. It is a favorite and one that is the center piece of most if not all Revel Celebrations. Don't know what a Revel Celebration is? Google it!

The Shortest Day
By Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

[realiz]

Reluctance
By Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

[Saffron]

From Robert Frost's Reluctance

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping

This is one of my favorite lines of poetry.