I enjoy reading poetry. Like many, I have my favorite poets, William Butler Yeats, Carl Sandberg, Emily Dickinson, Denise Levertov to name just a few. I suppose it is in reading the poems of these great poets that I try and make my pathetic attempts at poetry.
One of my favorite times in the day to read poetry is at night. I was reading poems from a wonderful source last night namely, “The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry”. Here are some of the poems that leapt off the page for me. Most are not long and are pertinent to our time.
Given the recent display of racism in our nation. This poem from Langston Hughes is very timely.
I, too, sing America
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow, I’ll sit at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.
Langston Hughes, 1926
. The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 717-721). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.
This is a good question. God is all knowing we believe. Did God know what God was getting into when humanity was created?
They Ask: Is God, Too, Lonely?
When God scooped up a handful of dust,
And spit on it, and molded the shape of man.
And blew a breath into it and told it to walk—
That was a great day.
And did God do this because He was lonely?
Did God say to Himself he must have company
And therefore He would make man to walk the earth
And set apart churches for speech and song with God?
These are questions.
They are scrawled in old caves.
They are painted in tall cathedrals.
There are men and women so lonely they
believe
God. too, is lonely.
Sandburg, Carl. Harvest Poems: 1910-1960 (Harvest Book) . HMH Books. Kindle Edition.
Though this poem is from World War II, the death of our young continues just as brutally, whether it be in gun turret on a B-17 or a Humvee.
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
Randall Jarrell, 1945
. The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 1755-1760). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.
Were we to go through the personal effects of an enemy soldier, would we not find that which is similar to ours? Pictures of children, sweethearts, parents, and others?
Reconciliation
Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of
carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night
incessantly softly wash again, and ever again,
this soiled world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin—
I draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips
the white face in the coffin.
Walt Whitman, 1865
. The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 1817-1824). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.
Nature has a way of erasing all signs of human life. Look at what the jungle has done to cover up the advanced civilizations in Central America. It would take just a century for the sands of the desert to cover up all traces of human life. This poem by Carl Sandberg reminds us that for all the memorials we may construct to mark that we had lived, all the tombstones and other markers last only for a small amount of time. We, too, will pass away unknown to the rest of humanity.
Grass
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers
ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
Carl Sandburg, 1918
. The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 1867-1873). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.
The effects of war do not cease when an armistice is announced.
What Were They Like?
- Did the people of Viet Nam use lanterns
of stone? - Did they hold ceremonies to reverence the
opening of buds?
3) Were they inclined to quiet laughter?
4) Did they use bone and ivory, jade and silver,
for ornament?
5) Had they an epic poem?
6) Did they distinguish between speech and
singing?
- Sir, their light hearts turned to stone.
It is not remembered whether in gardens
stone lanterns illumined pleasant ways. - Perhaps they gathered once to delight in
blossom, but after the children were killed
there were no more buds.
3) Sir, laughter is bitter to the burned mouth.
4) A dream ago, perhaps. Ornament is for joy.
All the bones were charred.
5) It is not remembered. Remember, most
were peasants; their life was in rice and
bamboo. When peaceful clouds were
reflected in the paddies and the water buffalo
stepped surely along terraces, maybe fathers
told their sons old tales. When bombs
smashed those mirrors there was time
only to scream.
6) There is an echo yet of their speech which was
like a song. It was reported their singing
resembled the flight of moths in moonlight.
Who can say? It is silent now.
Denise Levertov, 1966
. The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 1914-1921). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.
Though this poem applies to the time of the Cuban Missile Crises in which the world came close to World War III, look at global warming and climate change is close to ending life as we know it on Earth.
Earth
“A planet doesn’t explode of itself,” said drily
The Martian astronomer, gazing off into the air—
“That they were able to do it is proof that highly
Intelligent beings must have been living there.”
John Hall Wheelock, 1961
. The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 1988-1990). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.
The greatest of cathedrals, the beauty of the Sistine Chapel are mere nothings in contrast to the beauty of a field of daffodils.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
William Wordsworth, 1804
. The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 2088-2090). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.
I have a great problem with the Catholic Feast of Christ the King which ends the liturgical year. Jesus had nothing to do with the title of King while he was alive. In fact, when people came to crown him king he fled from them (see John’s account of the feeding of the 5000). He scoffed at the title King when interrogated by Pilate in John’s Passion. This is does not deny that Jesus is the Word or Logos of God who addresses all the universe. I think the most appropriate image of Jesus is that in the image of the vulnerable lamb. Behold the “Lamb of God.” John the Baptist cries. This is a lovely poem.
The Lamb
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb,
He is meek, and he is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
William Blake, 1789
. The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 2102-2110). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.
These next two poems describe in a beautiful way, my Ruth, the love of my life.
Her Heart
Her heart is always doing lovely things,
Filling my wintry mind with simple flowers;
Playing sweet tunes on my untunèd strings,
Delighting all my undelightful hours,
She plays me like a lute, what tune she will,
No string in me but trembles at her touch,
Shakes into sacred music, or is still,
Trembles or stops, or swells, her skill is such.
And in the dusty taverns of my soul
Where filthy lusts drink witches’ brew for wine,
Her gentle hand still keeps me from the bowl,
Still keeps me man, saves me from being swine.
All grace in me, all sweetness in my verse,
Is hers, is my dear girl’s, and only hers.
John Masefield, 1915
. The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 2342-2350). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.
On a Certain Lady at Court
I know the thing that’s most uncommon
(Envy be silent, and attend!)
I know a reasonable woman,
Handsome and witty, yet a friend.
Not warped by passion, awed by rumor,
Not grave through pride, or gay through folly,
An equal mixture of good humor
And sensible soft melancholy.
“Has she no faults, then (Envy says), sir?”
Yes, she has one, I must aver:
When all the world conspires to praise her,
The woman’s deaf, and does not hear.
Alexander Pope, 1732
. The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 2353-2359). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition. fffffffff
