has sprung…

I love daffodils, don’t you - they are so cheerful..

thought it was time for a change around here.

And time for some poetry….

because it’s

e It’s we)

e e cummins

What would you say
If you could speak
My beautiful one?

Your face has seen so many things.

Would you speak of ancient riches, seen by you?
Would you mention the sparkling treasures surrounding you?
Would you whisper the magic spells of intoxication that emanate from you?

Day by day
You change
My beautiful one

Your change brings so many things

Sometimes you hide your face from the world
Sometimes your face is hidden from the world
Sometimes your face is revealed to the world

But all the time
You are there
My beautiful one

Solid, Silver
Rosy, Gold

Beams and shadows
Secrets told

What would you speak of?
What have you seen?

Where are you going?
Where have you been?

In your fullness, you smile
And, as each day passes,
Your form diminishes

And as every nocturnal sliver is etched away
And your form is changed
Day after day

Night by night
You evolve
My beautiful one.

Until there is nothing left to see,
And then, the inexorable march of time brings you back
To your gradual increasing form..

But night by night, your presence is felt
And your influence on tide and earth is increased
As your silver light grows and the darkness is ceased
And your orb of cratered fullness returns
To cast your mantle again
Over your sparkling, twinkling subjects..

And there you remain
So constant
In this ever changing world

My beautiful one..

The moon.

Here is a snippit of some words that have been hovering around my brain for a day or two…. Son came bounding in on me and I lost the rest.. don’t you find that if you don’t get it all down at the time, those words can dissappear into the mist of oblivion and not come back?  I do, anyway..  I have a vague idea where I was going - it would beinteresting to see if anyone else thinks like me - actually I would feel most perplexed if there was anyone else in this world who thinks like me!!!
So, anyone fancy finishing it for me?

What would you say
If you could speak My beautiful one?

Your face has seen so many things.

Would you speak of ancient riches, seen by you?
Would you mention the sparkling treasures surrounding you?
Would you whisper the magic spells of intoxication that emanate from you?

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities
no doubt have crept in;
forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely
and with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with
your old nonsense.

This day is all that is
good and fair.
It is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on yesterdays.

Now all I have to do is try to put this into practice in my own life rather than running and re-writing things over and over in my mind…and usually this happens between the hours of three and four am…

Easier said than done methinks!!!

“Dare to be different; life is so full
Of people who follow the same push-and-pull,
Poor, plodding people who, other than name,
Try to pretend they’re exactly the same.

God made us different; there never will be
A replica soul made of you or me.
The charm-the glory of all creation
rests on this very deviation.

Your charm-your own glory, too,
Lies in being uniquely you -
Lies in being true to your best,
That part of you different from all the rest.”

Helen Lowrie Marshall

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

Well, they say you learn something new every day and, whilst I am familiar with some of the works of this author, I did not actually know he was American. Ed introduced me to his poems a long time ago…. I was looking for the one cummings wrote about Spring, to put on the blog as the sun was actually shining enough for me to feel reassured that perhaps Spring was actually close at hand - despite the date… and I came across this one which I had not read before. I think it is beautiful…..

So please allow me to share it with you and to indulge me when I say that this is for my lovely husband, who has looked after me so well over the last few weeks, and, whose heart I carry in my own, all the time.

You might prefer to read the previous post first..not that any of this will make any sense!

Part One: The Secret

Look into the depth below.
See the colours in the light,
A yellow ray,
A golden beam,
Bouncing on the surface of the mirroring blue,

A bounding wave,
A silver gleam,
Tinted with a multi-coloured hue.

Look at the field of green and gold.
A sea of undulating motion.
The warm, living breath
Sends briny ripples over the bright buttercup bed,
Of soft, reflective yellow water.
See the scattered, darting, opium-drowsed fish
Swimming silently in this splendid yellow ocean.

Feel the cool green wetness
Washing over our feet,
When we wade through the water,
Then, sit down laughing
In our ocean of grasses
Murmuring their secrets of time as it passes.

The white cliffs listen
And they tell the seagulls
As they circle and nest
On the craggy hard face.

The gulls, in turn,
Tell the life of the seashore
The secret they know of
Our special place.

The white horses listen
As they gallop along madly,
Their frothy manes flying like flags in the breeze
We listen,
Together
But we fail to decipher,
The mysterious whispers of the grass and the trees.

Why did the grass whisper?
And why was it a secret?
Why can’t we know that the rustling leaves said?
Why were the seagulls
Laughing above us?
What were they telling us, high overhead?

Perhaps we should ask them
Of what they were laughing,
Perhaps we should go back
And just ask them, why?
Perhaps they will tell us
just what we have done wrong?
Perhaps, don’t you think,
it is worth just a try?

But wait.
If we went back to
Our green and gold haven,
And we sat down together
In our reflective gold sea,
We may again hear the whispers
And low gentle murmurs,
As the grass tells the seagulls
Just what they have seen.

They are telling of sorrow
Of round salty teardrops,
And unhappy faces in the gold and the green.

They are saying, my vision,
This green and gold ocean,
Must vanish so quickly
Like the mist on the sea.

For the green grass has whispered
Again to the seagull
But this time,
The seagull,
Has the secret,
told me.

Looking back, I see a girl.
She sits, in a field, surrounded by long grass and buttercups.
The wind is whispering secret messages that ripple and sway in the wind, the breeze edging up the cliff tops from the sea, spreading its word like wildfire around the field.

On her lap lies a posy that she had picked earlier and she is weaving a chain, a yellow gold chain of buttercups, that soon becomes a length of gleaming, glinting beauty. She casually loops the last stem over the first flower and holds the circlet in her hand. She twirls and rotates the ring of flowers, pulling it between her fingers. She sits and wonders.

Looking back, I see a boy.
He sits, in a field, surrounded by long grass and buttercups.
He does not hear the whisper and chatter of grasses and flowers, swaying in the breeze. He is listening to the seagulls as they circle and swoop over-head, their harsh cry interrupting the moment, just for a second, then the wind carries their call off, far away.

He lies back slightly, his weight supported on one arm. It brings him slightly closer toward her. His head is close to her arm. The sun radiates behind him, causing his curly hair to look like a bright halo around his head. He watches as she fiddles with the flowers, silent and slightly shy. He sits and wonders.

She leans forward, and gently slides the flower garland over his radiant head and hangs it aroung his neck, a fitting chain of office for her golden prince. He smiles.

Her hands now tense and empty, begin again, the loop and link motion of flower chain making, and quickly, there is another golden circle in her hands. Again she rotates the loop between her fingers, uncertain of what to do with it.

He leans forward, his fingers gently brushing hers as he takes the chain from her hands into his. He sits up and gently places it upon her head. His finger, casually looping back a strand of her hair behind her ear, then rearranges the ring of flowers to form a perfect crown of gold for his princess. She smiles.

He edges a little closer and they sit. Silent. Bodies making contact for the first time as their arms melt into each other as they sat closer together, side by side. Awkwardly, she starts to gather up the remaining flowers from her lap. Wilted and shrivelled already from the sun. He reaches out and picks another. He holds it in his hand, and then, places the yellow bloom under her chin. The golden petals showered her skin with golden light. Reflected burnished light radiating from the flower, bathing her skin in golden glory.

“Do you like butter?” he said.

“Yes” she said.

And as their eyes locked, and their eyes smiled, and their eyes melted, the padlock turned in their hearts and the moment was locked and sealed for ever. And the grasses whispered, and the seagulls called, and a murmer of relief rushed through the field, the news radiating from that spot. The secret was shared…

Looking now, I see, not a girl and a boy, but a man and a woman. Hair smattered with silver rather than gold. But linked together still by bands of gold. A golden moment. And every time we see a buttercup, we remember that moment. The moment we knew. The moment we accepted.

The day I became your “Lady of the Buttercups”.

“We gave each other buttercups.

We gave each other, Life”.

Well, even though William Shakespeare died on April 23rd 1616 at the age of 54, his death has always been a mystery. He is buried at this church, Holy Trinity Church, Stratford on Avon. (beautiful place isn’t it?) Anyway, nearly 500 years later, his death was big news in the Newspaper yesterday as someone has come up with a theory as to his possible cause of death, based on visual “clues” in one of his portraits.

Anyway, whether this theory is indeed correct is a matter for conjecture but, I wanted to share with you one of my favourite sonnets written by the great man himself..even though there is some debate as to the provenance of some of his plays, his poems have non such controversy (if you ignore the fact that some are addressed to a young man, that is)…..but that is neither here not there….

Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
admit impediments. Love is not love
which alters when it alteration finds,
or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh, no! It is an ever-fixed mark.
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
it is the star to every wandering bark,
whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
within his bending sickle’s compass come;
love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
but bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Williams Shakespeare

I am so thankful that I have had the good fortune to share my life with someone who has enabled me to feel exactly what the poet meant when he wrote those words… Every day is Valentine’s Day with Ed.

Enjoy the poem…..

Enjoy the weekend…….