I loved seeing your little video and getting to glimpse the magic between you and your family. Quite lovely.

Okay, I don’t know if original poetry is in the running but I wrote a small poem ‘o so many years ago that I recite to myself quite often when I am feeling separate or alone and it takes me back to the woods I was walking in when I “wrote” it. When I arrive in that space, I feel complete and whole, I feel the connection I have with all things. Here it goes:

“Beneath the moist earth
in the soft fertile ground,
The roots intertwine
and join the Trees as one.”

Thank you for allowing me to share this with you (and if you were looking for a poem by a published poet my feelings won’t be hurt to not be included in the drawing, I really just wanted to share).
Peace~
Dawn

What fun! I posted my favourite poem on my blog a little while ago. It’s one you may have read before, however, it resonates with me and I love it.

http://aglowingember.blogspot.com/2008/08/my-favourite-things-poem.html

P.S. I enjoyed the short history of the river, as well. ;o)

Carolynn

This is one of several favorite poems – it’s the one closest to my heart at this point in my life. “The Dance” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer http://tinyurl.com/yk2n99. (Her poem “The Invitation” is a very close second.)

This poem speaks to me of the things I am teaching myself right now – to slow down, to be still, to turn inward and follow my deepest desires, to be true to myself, to love, to risk, and simply be.

One of my favorite poets is/was Jane Kenyon, New Hampshire poet laureate, whose life and death were quite remarkable in their “ordinariness.” This poem was written, I believe, when Kenyon knew she had leukemia and had a very poor prognosis. (She was married to US Poet Laureate Donald Hall, who still resides in and writes from new Hampshire.)

Otherwise

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.

At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

Jane Kenyon

Fire and Ice – By Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

The summer I turned 16, I red this poem in a program at Meteor Crater in Arizona and I’ve since carried it with me as a reminder that sadness can rhyme.

Thanks to you, Patti, Billy Collins is one of my favorite poets. So, one of my favorite poems of his is a natural selection:

http://pratie.blogspot.com/2005/10/consolation-billy-collins.html

As a special bonus, anyone clicking the link to read the poem will also have the chance to meet Melinama. I have no idea who she is, but she was kind enough to include Consolation (the poem I am so fond of) in her blog, so I’m linking to her to return the blessing. She also has all manner of wise sayings in her right-hand column, which makes her blog even that much more attractive as a stopping-off point.

Patti–have I ever mentioned that I love those glasses?

ooohh!! the crafter in me craves that scarf–so cool! so hard to pick a favorite poem–I love too many poems!–but I picked this one to go with the scarf:

Winding Wool

by Robert Service

She’d bring to me a skein of wool
And beg me to hold out my hands;
so on my pipe I cease to pull
And watch her twine the shining strands
Into a ball so snug and neat,
Perchance a pair of socks to knit
To comfort my unworthy feet,
Or pullover my girth to fit.

As to the winding I would sway,
A poem in my head would sing,
And I would watch in dreamy way
The bright yarn swiftly slendering.
The best I liked were coloured strands
I let my pensive pipe grow cool . . .
Two active and two passive hands,
So busy winding shining wool.

Alas! Two of those hands are cold,
And in these days of wrath and wrong,
I am so wearyful and old,
I wonder if I’ve lived too long.
So in my loneliness I sit
And dream of sweet domestic rule . . .
When gentle women used to knit,
And men were happy winding wool.

Wage peace with your breath.

Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.

Breathe in terrorists
and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields.

Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.

Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.

Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.

Make soup.

Play music, memorize the words for thank you in three languages.

Learn to knit, and make a hat.

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief
as the outbreath of beauty
or the gesture of fish.

Swim for the other side.

Wage peace.

Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious:

Have a cup of tea and rejoice.

Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Celebrate today.

wage peace – judyth hill – september 12, 2001

It just speaks to me of how each act can be an opportunity to be prayerful, to be spiritual, to connect to something greater than ourselves.

The Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written,
I am not done with my changes.
~Stanley Kunitz

My glorious friend Delonda held my hands in hers and recited this poem to me as a gift from her soul to mine. It is precious to me, and I share it with you.

“why some people be mad at me sometimes”
they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and I keep on remembering
mine

Lucille Clifton is a goddess.

Patti – my years of reading your blog has greatly enhanced my knowledge of, and appreciation for, poetry. While Shel Silverstein wrote just children’s poetry, he’s still one of my favorites, because he made it accessible for children, meaning I could understand it, too.

However, you have clued me in about Billy Collins and his accessibility. Now I keep a copy of “The Lanyard” on my computer desktop at work, just so I can visit it now and then. Here he is reading it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EjB7rB3sWc

It’s become a favorite, as I can see my own children in that poem — and find myself thinking, “a lanyard really is more than enough.” But on the other side, thinking, “I have not done nearly enough to show my parents, and others, my appreciation for all they have done, and still do, for me.” And it portrays everything I’m feeling so simply. I get teary-eyed every time I read it – and then I call my mother.

“The Journey”
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with it’s stiff fingers
at the very foundations—
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.
-Mary Oliver

i know i’ve posted this one here before and it is still my favorite. i love it because i recognized myself in it, i saw the realization of the need to do things for myself that i had been holding back from. i was afraid to do what i felt i needed to do because i didn’t want to disappoint or let others down. i was trying to live up to what other people saw as what i should be doing. i think i’m rambling here… anyway it’s fitting to put a poem by Mary Oliver with your post about the scarf you got at a Mary Oliver reading!
p.s. i also absolutely love the poem posted by carolynn above, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer!

This year, I decided to quit dyeing my hair, and dye yarn instead. I am 52, and can honestly say, these are the days, the best that I’ve ever had.

My favorite poet follows:

“A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty”

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda’s sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What’s a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then–
How old is Spring, Miranda?

Ogden Nash

As always, I’m wowed by the insights and wisdom of the writer and the readers of 37 Days.

Good for you, Patti, for asking for that scarf . . . I’ve gotten some great stuff by simply asking, but even better, I’ve had some fun interactions with folks – a great way to connect!

So here is a link to one of my favorite poems. I believe it speaks for my son, Isaac – one of my greatest teachers.
http://www.geocities.com/unii/ms.html

Thanks for all you do!

Nancy

Hello, I love the poetry of Mary Oliver, as many people do. The following poem has a special resonance for me because I read it at my father’s recent burial.

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

My favorite lines of the poem are the early lines where she writes of the earth’s “dark skirs [and her] pockets full of lichens and seeds…” because that is such a lovely image. I also love the last sentence because it is full of such hope and such faith in the importance and beauty and transforming effects of being close to the earth.

I just love what 37 days has become with time: an interactive community of wonderful diverse people. This time the comments are a great addition to your generosity.
And thanks to having introduced me to some great Americans, among them Chad Alice Hagen!

So here’s a poem I love:

Between what I see and what I say
Between what I say and what I keep silent
Between what I keep silent and what I dream
Between what I dream and what I forget
Poetry.

Octavio Paz

And the reasons for this particular poem?
Part of them are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28092570@N03/

My favorite poem (one of many)is Nikki Giovanni’s Love Is. It’s a sweet, short poem that reminds me of my sweetie.

people forget that love is
tucking you in and kissing you
“Good night”
no matter how young or old you are

Some people don’t remember that
love is
listening and laughing and asking
questions
no matter what your age

Few recognize that love is
commitment, responsibility
no fun at all
unless

Love is
You and me

WHAT IT MEANS TO TRAVEL THE STRAIGHTEST LINE:

(by Folin Frangicetto from This Day
Forward)

placed, so out of focus
somehow i find myself inside the frame
within this concrete empire
i
swear
to
leave
stand and absorb all the scapes of the land
stare harder, with intentions of figuring it all out
and then held for ransom,
who would make this trade?
the blurring rails and power plants
have me thinking that ive lost the way.

I love this one for a few reasons. It’s from Revolution on Canvas, a compilation of poetry, short stories and visual art by indie performance artists whose work in these mediums rarely sees the light of day. I also like it because, while this may not be the author’s intent, it reminds me of urban photography, which is a favorite hobby of mine.

Only have many favorites–not one–but here’s one of those I love.

Johanna
—

Picnic in July
on the grounds below the Veteran’s Home

by Paige Heim-Thompson

He watches for butterflies
as I puncture a hole
through the skin
of an orange
with my thumb.

Beneath his shirt,
a birthmark
imprinted on his belly —
the tip of an arrowhead
pointing toward his navel.

Yesterday he wondered,
is a flower still a flower
when it dies?

In the parking lot beside us
a man pulls his lunch
from a brown sack inside his car.

A man alone is still a man.

A flower is a flower
from seed to petal to ground.

Just look at this orange
in our hands,

Just look at the pulp we devour.

Paige Heim-Thompson lives in Minneapolis with Steve, her husband of 12 years, and their two children, Charlie, age 7, and toddler Juliet. She works part-time at a local hospital and has had poems published in Nerve Cowboy and Fauquier Poetry Journal. In 2002 she was a poetry finalist in the Loft Mentor Series competition.

He’s quirky, and that’s why I love his writings! And if you haven’t read his book, The Giving Tree, you simply must.

Early Bird

Oh, if you’re a bird, be an early bird
And catch the worm for your breakfast plate.
If you’re a bird, be an early early bird–
But if you’re a worm, sleep late.

by Shel Silverstein

Patti –

Happy 50th and happy 4th Blogiversary!

Nothing describes for me the contradictions of being a woman like Tess Gallagher’s poem:

I Stop Writing the Poem…..Tess Gallagher

to fold the clothes. No matter who lives
or who dies, I’m still a woman.
I’ll always have plenty to do.
I bring the arms of his shirt
together. Nothing can stop
our tenderness. I’ll get back
to the poem. I’ll get back to being
a woman. But for now
there’s a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it’s done.