"Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought of the unthinking." ~~ John Maynard Keynes

Friday, April 29, 2011

It's Friday, I'm in Love.....

....with Life!

My apologies to the Cure and Robert Smith.  I think he was on to something, Friday seems rife with possibility, more than any other day of the week.

This week, three songs keep slipping through the recesses weaving the tapestry of words into a distinct pattern capturing and holding my memories.  All three songs address the messy and often imperfect quality of loving someone and the courage that it often takes.

These song lyrics exist on a spectrum as all love does.  Mumford and Sons' lyrics capture unrequited love and that experience of loving too much. Adele's lyrics capture the tentativeness of falling in love, that willingness to take a risk.  Finally, Jack Johnson seems to find the middle road, celebrating the moments, small or big, spent with someone you love.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage ~~  Lao Tzu

The lyrics and corresponding videos are below. 

White Blank Page
~~Mumford and Sons

White Blank Page live!

Can you lie next to her
And give her your heart, your heart
As well as your body
And can you lie next to her
And confess your love, your love
As well as your folly
And can you kneel before the king
And say I'm clean, I'm clean
 

But tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart
But tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart

A white blank page and a swelling rage, rage

You did not think when you sent me to the brink, the brink
You desired my attention but denied my affections, my affections
 
Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life
Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life 

One And Only
~~Adele

Watch Adele perform One and Only, live in Paris

You've been on my mind
I grow fonder every day,
lose myself in time just thinking of your face
God only knows why it's taking me so long
to let my doubts go
You're the only one that I want

I don't know why I'm scared, I've been here before

Every feeling, every word, I've imagined it all,
You never know if you never try to forget your past
And simply be mine

I dare you to let me be your, your one and only

Promise I'm worth it to hold in your arms
So come on and give me the chance

To prove that I'm the one who can

Walk that mile
Until the end starts

Have I been on your mind?

You hang on every word I say, lose yourself in time
At the mention of my name, will I ever know
How it feels to hold you close
And have you tell me which ever road I chose you'll go

I don't know why I'm scared, I've been here before

Every feeling every word, I've imagined it all,
You never know if you never tried to forgive your past
And simply be mine

I dare you to let me be your, your one and only

I promise I'm worthy to hold in your arms
So come on and give me the chance

To prove that I'm the one who can

Walk that mile
Until the end starts

I know it ain't easy

Giving up your heart
I know it ain't easy
Giving up your heart

(Nobody's perfect, trust me I've earned it)

I know it ain't easy, giving up your heart
(Nobody's perfect, trust me I've earned it)
I know it ain't easy, giving up your heart

I know it ain't easy

Giving up your heart

I dare you to let me be your, your one and only

I promise I'm worth it to hold in your arms
So come on and give me the chance

To prove I'm the one who can

Walk that mile until the end starts
Come and give me the chance
To prove that I'm the one who can
Walk that mile until the end starts.

Better Together
~~Jack Johnson

Better Together music video with lyrics.

There is no combination of words I could put on the back of a postcard
No song that I could sing, but I can try for your heart
Our dreams, and they are made out of real things
Like a, shoebox of photographs
With sepiatone loving
Love is the answer,
At least for most of the questions in my heart
Like why are we here? And where do we go?
And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy and
Sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing, it's always better when we're together

Mmm, it's always better when we're together

Yeah, we'll look at the stars when we're together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together

And all of these moments

Just might find their way into my dreams tonight
But I know that they'll be gone
When the morning light sings
And brings new things
For tomorrow night you see
That they'll be gone too
Too many things I have to do
But if all of these dreams might find their way
Into my day to day scene
I'd be under the impression
I was somewhere in between
With only two
Just me and you
Not so many things we got to do
Or places we got to be


It's always better when we're together

Mmm, we're somewhere in between together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together

Mmm, mmm, mmm


I believe in memories

They look so, so pretty when I sleep
Hey now, and when I wake up,
You look so pretty sleeping next to me
But there is not enough time,
And there is no, no song I could sing
And there is no, combination of words I could say
But I will still tell you one thing
We're better together.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

When all else is lost....

Hope
~~jkr

Hope is a stubborn seed.
It grows without promise,
Without nurturing,
Without love even.
Hope expects nothing,
but believes in everything.
Facing the worst odds,
Hope will still stand up and say,
“Here I am.”

Hope is able to slough off the detritus that weighs
all else down,
and approach each moment with newness.
Hope stands beside you in the door frame
on the threshold of the unknown,
and says, "be brave."  
Hope has
a naïve but valiant ability
to see beyond the impossible.
Hope will ignore all the signs
that turn a more feeble heart back
Those voices that say,
“You can’t,” “it won’t,” “we will not.”
Hope says, "here I am," "We can do this together." 

Even when love seems lost,
Hope is a persistent seed
that pushes itself
through bedrock
to say, “Here I am.”
Hope knows I have not given up and neither should you.

        And some words from Emily....

“Hope” is the thing with feathers
~~Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all - 
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm - 
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

       And some song lyrics......

The Cave
  ~~Mumford and Sons

But I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Poem in Your Pocket Day!

April 14th is National Poem in Your Pocket Day!

It's not too late to participate.  Go to one of the links on this blog to find a poem for your pocket.

Poem in Your Pocket Day

Rain down on me.....

So, indeed, here I find myself standing at the screen door during violent storms almost as if called to be part of this great cleansing of the Earth.  For that is what it feels like.  Like everything is being scrubbed clean. There are also those times when the Earth is parched and the waters slake its thirst.
Rain carries with it that soul cleansing and nourishing quality, yet there are times when it almost acts like a scourge upon the earth, as with the recent tsunami in Japan and the numerous floods around the globe. 

Heavy Summer Rain
~~Jane Kenyon 
The grasses in the field have toppled,
and in places it seems that a large, now
absent, animal must have passed the night.
The hay will right itself if the day

turns dry. I miss you steadily, painfully.
None of your blustering entrances
or exits, doors swinging wildly
on their hinges, or your huge unconscious
sighs when you read something sad,
like Henry Adam’s letters from Japan,
where he traveled after Clover died.

Everything blooming bows down in the rain:
white irises, red peonies; and the poppies
with their black and secret centers
lie shattered on the lawn.

These lyrics from Mumford and Sons weave nicely into tonight's cloth.

Thistle & Weeds
~~Mumford & Sons
Spare me your judgments and spare me your dreams
Cause recently mine have been tearing my seams
I sit alone in this winter clarity which clouds my mind
Alone in the wind and the rain you left me
It's getting dark darling, too dark to see
And I'm on my knees, and your faith in shreds, it seems

Corrupted by the simple sniff of riches blown
I know you have felt much more love than you've shown
And I'm on my knees and the water creeps to my chest

But plant your hope with good seeds
Don't cover yourself with thistle and weeds
Rain down, rain down on me
Look over your hills and be still
The sky above us shoots to kill
Rain down, rain down on me

But I will hold on
I will hold on hope
  

   And my own attempt at capturing a quality of rain....
   
  Garden Friends
  ~~jkreed

When first this began
With its spring-like energy
delicate tendrils new and fragile
looked for sustenance and nurturing
the sun’s energy
pulled them in
but like a drought-filled summer
the intensity of the sun
began to cause harm where once it nurtured
their growth was skewed
dependent upon only one source
those once tender shoots now in the height of growth
wilt and shrivel
burned by the sun’s intensity
beaten down by the thing that once fed and sustained them
but hope persists
and they lie waiting for the rains
that will slake their thirst
and revive their souls
remind them of why they had been on this journey in the first place
the rains come
and they drink of it
but no longer with the wild abandon they once did
these first attempts are furtive and uncertain
the scars from their first attempt still livid and apparent
so they rise up from the earth,  buoyed by hope and the certainty that
they had come too far to let it all go
now they grow again
more carefully
more gently
less certain
they are perennials these two
each spring ready to put out tender green shoots
but always at the root
where it matters most
there is
them

Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.   
             ~George Washington

Of great storms and first loves....

These rainy days have made me pensive.  I love a good rain storm, especially one that includes thunder and lightning.   I have a memory that I was almost struck by lightning as a young child (though according to my parents, it didn’t actually happen).  In this memory, I am standing on the beach with my grandfather during a classic summer storm.  I can picture the sky and its “daytime of the night” visage; I can hear the ocean waves rolling the rocks along the shore; I can smell the sea air as the wind blows its damp spray across my face; and, I can feel my grandfather’s bear-like presence beside me.  True or false this memory is embedded in my psyche, where countless years later, I often find myself standing at the screen door during violent storms.

First Storm and Thereafter

What I first notice within
          this rough scene fixed

in memory is the rare,
        
quality of its lightning, as if
those bolts were clipped

          from a comic book, pasted

on low cloud, or fashioned

          with cardboard, daubed

with gilt then hung overhead

          on wire and fine hooks.

What I hear most clearly

          within that thunder now

is its grief—a moan, a long

         lament echoing, an ache.

And the rain? Raucous enough,

         pounding, but oddly
musical, and, well,
         eager to entertain, solicitous.
 

No storm since has been framed
         with such matter-of-fact

artifice, nor to such comic

         effect. No, the thousand-plus

storms since then have turned

         increasingly artless,

arbitrary, bearing—every
          one of them—a numbing burst.
And today, from the west a gust
          and a filling pressure
pulsing in the throat—offering
          little or nothing to make light of.
Source: Poetry (April 2011). 

So the poem begs the question, how does something stay "fresh" and not become artless or arbitrary?  And is he really talking about storms?  I think this is the reason I love poetry as much as I do.  We, as readers, are left to read these words and weave them into the cloth of our own lives and give them new meaning; one that is all our own.  And so, another poem!

First Love
John Clare

I ne’er was struck before that hour
   With love so sudden and so sweet,
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
   And stole my heart away complete.

My face turned pale as deadly pale,
   My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked, what could I ail?
   My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face
   And took my eyesight quite away,
The trees and bushes round the place
   Seemed midnight at noonday.

I could not see a single thing,
   Words from my eyes did start—
They spoke as chords do from the string,
   And blood burnt round my heart.

Are flowers the winter’s choice?
   Is love’s bed always snow?
She seemed to hear my silent voice,
I never saw so sweet a face
   As that I stood before.
My heart has left its dwelling-place
   And can return no more.

Hear the poem.


Tuesday, April 12, 2011

David Ferry Awarded 2011 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize

David Ferry Awarded 2011 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize

Award recognizes lifetime accomplishment with $100,000 prize

April 12th, 2011
CHICAGO — The Poetry Foundation is pleased to announce that poet David Ferry has won the 2011 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.
Presented annually to a living US poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is one of the most prestigious awards given to American poets. At $100,000, it is also one of the nation’s largest literary prizes. Established in 1986, the prize is sponsored and administered by the Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine.

Courtesy

David Ferry
 
It is an afternoon toward the end of August:   
Autumnal weather, cool following on,   
And riding in, after the heat of summer,   
Into the empty afternoon shade and light,


The shade full of light without any thickness at all;
You can see right through and right down into the depth   
Of the light and shade of the afternoon; there isn’t   
Any weight of the summer pressing down.


In the backyard of the house next door there’s a kid,   
Maybe eleven or twelve, and a young man,
Visitors at the house whom I don’t know,
The house in which the sound of some kind of party,


Perhaps even a wedding, is going on.
Somehow you can tell from the tone of their voices   
That they don’t know each other very well—
Two guests at the party, one of them, maybe,


A friend of the bride or groom, the other the son
Or the younger brother, maybe, of somebody there.   
A couple of blocks away the wash of traffic
Dimly sounds, as if we were near the ocean.


They’re shooting baskets, amiably and mildly.
The noise of the basketball, though startlingly louder   
Than the voices of the two of them as they play,   
Is peaceable as can be, something like meter.


The earnest voice of the kid, girlish and manly,
And the voice of the young man, carefully playing the game   
Of having a grown-up conversation with him:
I can tell the young man is teaching the boy by example,


The easy way he dribbles the ball and passes it   
Back with a single gesture of wrist to make it   
Easy for the kid to be in synch;
Giving and taking, perfectly understood. 

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

I'm gonna send a little rain your way…..

And why, might you ask?  How should this offering be received?  I guess that depends upon your perspective.  I imagine that most people have been inculcated into the “rain is bad” thought  train because of nursery songs and rhymes like “ It’s raining, it’s pouring the old man is snoring” and “rain rain, go away, come again another day.”  A quick search of the Poetry Foundation yields 1,070 poems about rain, a majority of them waxing poetic (pun intended) on the negative aspects of rain.

I am on the “I love the rain" thought train. 

Rain drops from the sky
leave behind puddles that now
reflect its glory.


And thankfully so are others, like Langston Hughes. 

April Rain Song
~~by Langston Hughes

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night—

And I love the rain.

Here he is reading this poem.  
  
Rain creates nature’s best playground toy.  I have many memories of my children running outside in rain storms to stomp in the puddles and generally run around getting soaking wet.  In fact, if the weather permitted, bathing suits were donned and out they went!  I have what I imagine is a fairly universal picture of my daughter in her yellow rain boots, her yellow slicker with the hood up and an umbrella running around in the small pond-sized puddle that would form during each rainstorm at the bottom of the driveway. So for those times, this particular memory and the ones to come.  An ode to rain:


Puddles left by rain
are my playground inviting
me to jump right in

Sunday, April 3, 2011

"There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature." ~ Jane Austen

And you've got to have friends.....
These words remind me how important friends are in my own  journey. I have relied upon my friends to pick me up when I am down as well as support and encourage me. I have tried (and hopefully succeeded) to do the same for them.  What kind of love is this?  How is it to be defined?  A quick Google search of "love" delivers About 4,180,000,000 results.  A daunting number of hits. Clearly, this is a topic that many have plumbed.  Despite this fact, I will add my two cents to the myriad theories and beliefs already stated.  

I like Wikipedia's definition of love as “an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion and affection.” I am wondering whether love is a thread in this tapestry or the canvas upon which the tapestry can be woven.  Here is the gist, "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage," (Laozi)  I have always been aware of the essential role my friends play in my life and how the love from those relationships sustains me. So here is a tribute to love, "a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion and affection."

I think because it is spring and because life around me has that air of rebirth I have been more cognizant of the interactions of those around me.  Those tender moments between friends.  I am seeing those acts of human kindness, compassion and affection; and, by this I mean not just observing them, but taking them in and letting them reach some inner part of my being.  Today I witnessed a woman place her hands firmly and lovingly on the shoulders of a young woman in a wheel chair and I saw how that small gesture made that young woman feel. I also witnessed an older girl take a five year old under her wing, sending her reaffirming glances.  


These past few weeks, it is as if Mary Oliver has been journeying with me,
reminding me to be a witness to these moments. 

"Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it."


~Mary Oliver

Since all poetry remembers when it was sung (Borges), a few lyrics from Alanis Morissette’s, "You Owe Me Nothing In Return."

I'll give you countless amounts of outright acceptance if you want it
I will give you encouragement to choose the path that you want if you need it
You can speak of anger and doubts your fears and freak outs and I'll hold it
You can share your so-called shame filled accounts of times in your life and I won't judge it
(and there are no strings attached to it)

You owe me nothing for giving the love that I give
You owe me nothing for caring the way that I have
I give you thanks for receiving it's my privilege
And you owe me nothing in return



And a few quotes for good measure.....
“I'm treating you as a friend asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future pluses.”
Katherine Mansfield

"Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place."
~Zora Neal Hurston

~"Where there is love there is life. "
Mohandas Gandhi