Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Change and Turn: Catherine Windsor

Change and Turn

Change me,

Change me into gold and flamelets

Fire me up and in between

Burnish with equinox turnings.

Deliver me into

A spinnery of birch and larch

Where hive, alive,

Hangs on soon leafless limb

Under a robin's egg blue sky.

Turn me,

Turn me into scarlet,

A paper coverlet And drop me down

Not to be trod under human feet

But to pillow hooves and paws,

And claws.

Above, frost-steeled ground

Beneath, silently moving furries with tails

And murmuring voices of woodland

Thrilling as high-hued leaf

Rushes along coldering stream

Toward unknown disappearing.

Move me,

Move me toward winding flames

Flying in flock toward silent

Destinies of aging life

To find only alien snows

As day turns to night,

Zenith to nadir

In time of change and turning…

Turning in spring to life.

~~Catherine Windsor~~

Monday, October 4, 2010

New start...

...it took an inspiring comment from irishpoetry to awaken the poetry-adoring me once again...I hope to post again very soon...

Sunday, March 25, 2007

an artist, never made for soldiering

After worst of weeks she put an end

to all her rum•pa•pum•pumming.



The tell-tale catatonic stare betrayed

an ocean swelling inside of her.



Time to rest the heart and stop the mind.

The wise and old familiar chair

stuffed with words to comfort her.



Poor dear... she's an artist, you see,

and was never made for soldiering.

Misfit toys sometimes get annoyed

with wounds and endless wandering.



No more fighting.

No more thinking.

An end to swan's song singing.



Just trust

and rest

your weeping head

on feathers friends are bringing.


~ Susan J. Preston

Thursday, March 8, 2007

"Birches" by Robert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.



Ice-storms do that.
Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain.
They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long,
they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:

I don't know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Photo One is by Nina Camic.
Photos Two and Three by Google Images.
Photo Four is from Casa Arbanil in Spain.

"At Last" by Elizabeth Akers Allen (1832 - 1911)

At last, when all the summer shine
That warmed life's early hours is past,
Your loving fingers seek for mine
And hold them close---at last---at last!
Not oft the robin comes to build
Its nest upon the leafless bough
By autumn robbed, by winter chilled,---
But you, dear heart, you love me now.

Though there are shadows on my brow
And furrows on my cheek, in truth,---
The marks where Time's remorseless plough

Broke up the blooming sward of Youth,---
Though fled is every girlish grace
Might win or hold a lover's vow,
Despite my sad and faded face,
And darkened heart, you love me now!

I count no more my wasted tears;
They left no echo of their fall;
I mourn no more my lonesome years;
This blessed hour atones for all.
I fear not all that Time or Fate
May bring to burden heart or brow,---
Strong in the love that came so late.

Monday, March 5, 2007

"Reconciliation"

I do not give
so you I may impress;
try as I may to live,
failing to provide redress.

I know you cannot be bought
nor would I try;
to ignoble a life
that God does dignify.

For what would the treasure be,
if you were to return so easily.
Hard won is your rare allegiance,
that was lost with such negligence.

Redeem me, let our pain cease
for true I am, let mercy be;
restore the promise
of sweet civility ;

absolution,
confession given
for Christ's sake,
reconciliation.

03202006

Epitaph for a Dying Christ

I have laboured sore,

suffering death...

And now I rest

to draw my Breath.