Nothing melodramatic going on here, I just thought this was a good poem.
Especially the last stanza.
‘To Whom Shall I Speak Today?’
To whom shall I speak today?
I am laden with misery
Through lack of an intimate …
Death is in my sight today
Like the clearing of the sky,
Like a man attracted thereby to
What he knows not.
Death is in my sight today,
Like the longing of a man to see home
When he has spent many years held in
captivity.
Anon
(A dispute over suicide, Egypt, before 2000 BC)
Poem found at: http://torch.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/towhom.html
Sonnet XVII
Pablo Neruda
|
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved
in secret, between shadow and soul
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where
I love you straightforwardly, without complexity or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. |
This is not only one of my favorite Dickinson poems, but one of my favorite poems, period. I appreciate the gentility and beauty that she uses to describe death, which is after all just a portal.
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
Or rather, they passed us;
The dews drew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ’tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward Eternity.
The picture below has provided me an overflowing cup of inspiration.
I know how that house feels.
I will be writing poetry today.
I adore cardinals. So did my mother. Below is a poem about a memory of her and cardinals.
Vivid Red
There was a morning,
a snowy, freezing morning,
long ago – decades ago -
when you called me to the kitchen window.
Outside was a male cardinal,
his color stunning against the snow.
Such a simple event,
yet the memory is as vivid as his red.
That was the day I realized
that you saw the beauty, too.
(c)2006 Susan Sonnen
When we lived in Olathe, Kansas, I kept bird feeders outside our kitchen window. A pair of cardinals stopped by each day. We named them Mr. And Mrs. Bridge.
Any time that I see a cardinal, I consider it a good omen.
