June 15 * June 8 * May 20 * April 27
April 20 * April 13 * April 3 * March 2
February 23 * February 16 * February 9
Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.
Little deeds of kindness,
Little words of love,
Make our world an Eden
Like the Heaven above.
Julia Carney
As virtuous men passe mildly away,
So let us melt, and make no noise,
Moving of th'earth brings harmes and feares,
Dull sublunary lovers love
But we by a love, so much refin'd,
Our two soules therefore, which are one,
If they be two, they are two so
And though it in the center sit,
Such wilt thou be to mee, who must
John Donne
And down by the brimming river
I'll love you dear, I'll love you
I'll love you till the ocean
The years shall run like rabbits
W.H. Auden
Somewhere there is someone
John Gilbert Connings
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
William Butler Yeats
I shot an arrow into the air,
I breathed a song into the air,
Long, long afterward, in an oak
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I am the voice that often speaks
We travel as one
Sometimes in your silent moods
In the morning
I am the voice that often sings
When you wake
Albie Ollivierre
Can you sell me the air as it slips through your fingers
The air spins and goes by
Can you sell me the sky
The sky is in the clouds
Can you sell me rain, the water
Water falls, rolls on.
Can you sell me the earth, the deep
Your earth is mine.
Nicolas Guillen
I'm in a high mood
I've had enough of the earth's crust
Today I want to sing out loud
I'm not settling for river beds
Today I couldn't care if east turns west
Today I'll dance on the globe
while you class remain seated
All right class, see you later.
a million dreaming degrees
John Agard
Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost
Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars,
Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
Lord Alfred Tennyson
If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
There are no fortunes to be told, although,
The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
Suppose the lions all get up and go,
W.H.Auden
Christina Rosetti
See, the mountains kiss high heaven,
Percy Bysshe Shelley
© 1996, 1997, 1998 deanna@kajen.com, and merlin@tk.cybercities.net
Poem of The Week June 22 1998.
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
And whisper to their soules, to goe,
Whilst some of their sad friends doe say,
The breah goes now, and some say, no:
No teare-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
T'were prophonation of our joyes
To tell the layatie our love.
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheares,
Though greater farre is innocent.
(Whose soule is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care lesse, eyes, lips, and hands to misse.
Though I must goe, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate.
As stiffe twin compasses are two,
Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the'other doe.
Yet when the other far doth rome,
It leanes, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Like th'other foot, obliquely runne;
Thy firmnes drawes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begunne. Poem of The Week June 15 1998.
From: "Song: As I Walked Out One Evening"
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.
Till China and Africa meet
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon run in the street.
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages
And the first love of the world.Poem of The Week June 8 1998.
Always In My Heart
Who dreams of your smile,
Who thinks in your presence
Life is worthwhile.
So when you are lonely
Remember it's true;
Somebody, somewhere
Is thinking of you.Poem of The Week May 20 1998.
He wishes for the cloths of heaven
He wishes for the cloths of heaven
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. Poem of The Week April 27 1998.
The Arrow and The Song
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend. Poem of The Week April 20 1998.
Voice
I am the words that often weep
I am the choice of sounds you hear
I am the echo heard everywhere
And when you run
We're breathing in
And we're breathing out
To gain attention
We often shout.
You'll think of me
Before you decide
Before you choose
When you sing and chant
Making the breakfast
When you know you can't.
I am the voice that never shouts
I am the voice you forget about.
I am the warmth beyond your lips
I am the rush of summer breeze
That lingers on like a floating breeze
You will yawn
I am the long tone
That tells you
It is dawn.
I am the voice that often speaks
I am the voice that often weeps. Poem of The Week April 13 1998.
Can You?
As it slaps at your face and untidies your hair?
Perhaps you could sell me fivepennyworth of wind
or more, perhaps sell me a storm?
Perhaps the elegant air
you would sell me, that air
(not all of it) which trips around
your garden, from corolla to corolla
in your garden for the birds
tenpence worth of elegant air?
in a butterfly.
Belongs to no one, no one.
the sky sometimes blue
or grey as well sometimes
a strip of your sky
the bit you think you bought with the tress
of your garden, as one buys the roof with the house?
Can you sell me a dollar
of sky, two miles
of sky, a slice, whatever you can
of your sky?
The clouds go by
Belong to no one, no one.
given you by your tears, and moistening your tongue?
Can you sell me a dollar of water
from a spring, a gravid cloud
crinkly and soft as a sheep
or perhaps rainwater up in the mountains
or the water from puddles
left for the dogs
or a stretch of sea, maybe a lake,
a hundred dollars of lake?
Water rolls on, goes by.
Belongs to no one, no one.
night of the roots, teeth
of dinosaurs and the lime
dispersed from distant skeletons?
Can you sell me forests lying buried, birds that are dead
fishes of stone, the sulphur
of volcanoes, a thousand million years
twisting their way up? can you
sell me earth, can you
sell me earth, can you?
Trodden by everyone's feet.
Belongs to no one, no one. Poem of The Week April 3 1998.
What The Teacher Said When Asked:
What Er We Avin For Geography Miss?
This morning I've got too much energy
much too much for geography
so class don't think me crude
but you can stuff latitude and longitude
today I want to touch the clouds
and tear all maps to shreds
I want the sky and nothing less
Today I've got so much energy
I could do press-ups on the desk
but that won't take much out of me
in a rainbow robe
on your natural zone
with your pens and things
watching my contours grow wings
If the headmaster asks for me
say I'm a million dreaming degrees
beyond the equator
beyond the equator Poem of The Week March 2 1998.
Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font.
The fire-fly wakens; waken thou with me.
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
And all thy heart lies open unto me.
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me. Poem of The Week February 23 1998.
If I could tell you
Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.
There must be reasons why leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know. Poem of The Week February 16 1998.
Christina Rosetti's poem to Hilary
"Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me, when no more day by day,
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me, for a while
And afterward remember, do not grieve;
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad."Poem of The Week February 9 1998.
LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY
The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In another's being mingle--
Why not I with thine?
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower could be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?
Back to Reshma's Page.