Like sands through the hourglass...

I tend to ask for strange things for Christmas, and after a few years of making these strange requests, my husband usually buys them for me and I cherish them. (I know -- from a feminist perspective, I should probably buy them for myself, but because I know that I will cherish them, I like them to come from him.)

In previous years I have asked for and received a bushel basket and a shepherd's hook, for example, both symbolic items that are full of meaning to me.

The strangest item on this year's wish list was a good, old-fashioned hourglass. Not a 30-minute glass, or a stopwatch or anything mechanical that ticks or tocks - a real hourglass. Before he bought it for me, he asked me why? Why did I want an hourglass?

[Pictured: The hourglass Scott gave me showing exactly how much time this blog post took from beginning to end.]

It was difficult to explain.

I have long had a suspicion that I'm living in the wrong century. Not that God made a mistake, of course, but that I am living in 2016 as a sort of compromise between the 1800s, when I might have been born, and the 2100s when my husband might have been born. Maybe we mutually agreed to be born in the latter half of the 20th century. Just a theory, but who knows? It could be true.

Anyway, I am comfortable with an hourglass. It doesn't buzz at me or make any noise. Even holding it close to my ear, I can't hear the sand trickling down. I can look at it and see, without numbers or mathematics of any kind, how much time I have remaining in my task. No calculations necessary, or possible. It is a purely visual way of tracking time.

An hourglass is a useful thing if you need to do something very quiet on a regular basis for one hour, like writing.

A few quotes on HOURS:

Don’t say you don’t have enough time.  You have exactly the same number of HOURS per day that were given to Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Helen Keller, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. - H. Jackson Brown, Jr., Life’s Little Instruction Book

An HOUR’s industry will do more to produce cheerfulness, suppress evil humors, and retrieve your affairs than a month’s moaning. – Ben Franklin

One of the illusions is that the present HOUR is not the critical, decisive HOUR.  Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year. – Emerson

From John Dryden, English writer “Happy the Man”:

Happy the man, and happy he alone

Who can call today his own:

He who, secure within, can say,

Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today!

Be fair or foul or rain or shine,

The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate,, are mine.

Not heaven itself upon the past has power,

But what has been, has been, and

I have had my HOUR. 

RESEARCH NOTES: Hourglasses were not invented until about 150 BC. I would have thought they were older than that! In 1519, the explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, took 18 hourglasses with him as he sailed from Barcelona to circumnavigate the globe. A page would flip the hourglasses every 60 minutes to ensure the accuracy of the captain's logs. The hourglass remains a symbol of time today, most frequently on electronic screens to indicate that the computer is engaged in a time-consuming process.

Quotes and Thoughts on BEGINNING

Every journey ends at the BEGINning of another journey. - Anonymous

One who fears failure limits his worth. Failure is the opportunity to BEGIN again more intelligently. – Henry Ford

It is better to BEGIN in the evening than not at all. – English proverb

You can’t solve every problem, particularly if the problem isn’t yours to BEGIN with. – Dear Abby

The BEGINning is the most important part of the work.  – Plato

Attention is the BEGINning of devotion."-  Mary Oliver

To love oneself is the BEGINning of a life-long romance. – Oscar Wilde

The journey of a thousand miles BEGINs with one step. – Lao-tse

Now this is not the end. It is not even the BEGINning of the end.  But it is, perhaps, the end of the BEGINning. – Winston Churchill

Don’t despair. The world is round. What looks like the end may only be the BEGINning. – Unknown

But this revolutionary act of treating ourselves tenderly can BEGIN to undo the aversive messages of a lifetime. - Tara Brach 

Peace BEGINs with a smile. - Mother Teresa 

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good BEGINning and a good ending, and to have the two as close together as possible. - George Burns

Everyone has two lives. The second one BEGINs when you realize you only have one. – Steven Sotloff, American journalist killed by ISIS in Syria in 2014

"Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it BEGIN here" -- Captain John Parker, 1775 (commander at the Battle of Lexington)

Tomorrow is a new day; BEGIN it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I Happened To Be Standing" by Mary Oliver

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing

just outside my door, with my notebook open,

which is the way I BEGIN every morning.

Then a wren in the privet began to sing.

He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,

I don't know why. And yet, why not.

I wouldn't persuade you from whatever you believe

or whatever you don't. That's your business.

But I thought, of the wren's singing, what could this be

      if it isn't a prayer?

So I just listened, my pen in the air.

A Poem

I have always loved the cadence of this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I have no idea whether it is critcally acclaimed or not, but I like it for its rhythm and imagery. It's called "The Song of Hiawatha" and my father used to recite it to me when I was a child -- this one, and "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Thayer and "I Think That I Shall Never See a Poem as Lovely as a Tree" by Joyce Kilmer.
		By the shore of Gitchie Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, At the doorway of his wigwam, In the pleasant Summer morning, Hiawatha stood and waited. All the air was full of freshness, All the earth was bright and joyous, And before him through the sunshine, Westward toward the neighboring forest Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo, Passed the bees, the honey-makers, Burning, singing in the sunshine. Bright above him shown the heavens, Level spread the lake before him; From its bosom leaped the sturgeon, Sparkling, flashing in the sunshine; On its margin the great forest Stood reflected in the water, Every tree-top had its shadow, Motionless beneath the water. From the brow of Hiawatha Gone was every trace of sorrow, As the fog from off the water, And the mist from off the meadow. With a smile of joy and triumph, With a look of exultation, As of one who in a vision Sees what is to be, but is not, Stood and waited Hiawatha.

A very short poem to ponder

I heard this poem on the radio today and memorized one line of it to look up at home. The poet was an Australian horseman, born in the Azores, named Adam Lindsay Gordon, who died in 1870. The poem is only two stanzas long, but the last four lines are the most famous:

Question not, but live and labour
Till yon goal be won;
Helping every feeble neighbour,
Seeking help from none.


Life is mainly Froth and Bubble
Two things stand like stone-
Kindness in another's trouble.
Courage in your own.

I could take issue with the line, "seeking help from none," but, on the whole, I like it.

Daffodils Are Up...

No, those are just paper flowers!

About half of them were made by some sisters in my ward, the other half by Abby and me, for our Relief Society Birthday Social / Dinner tonight. Another lady in our ward invented them and actually published a book about making all kinds of paper flowers out of ordinary copy paper, which is inexpensive, readily available, and curls well for petals and leaves.


There are about 70 daffodils in these pictures, but imagine happening upon ten thousand of them on a lakeside walk, as William Wordsworth did. He tells the story in this poem from 1804, which has emerged as my favorite poem of all time, I think (I published it in this blog last spring, too):

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
Out-did 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.

Trite But True

I almost always strongly dislike BAD poetry, which I would define as poetry that is sacharine sweet, preaches a sermon, and rhymes at the same time.

But once in a while I find that I like a poem that is nonetheless syrupy, preachy and rhyming all at once. I think the difference lies in whether or not I trust the poet's sencerity and believe in the overall sentiment of the 'work,' such as it is.

I came across this poem about 20 years ago, and I have been drawn to it again and again over the years. I am posting it on my blog today in case anyone else could benefit from it as I have. The author is unknown.

"God hath not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through.
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

But God hath promised strength for the day,
Rest for the labor, peace for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love."

P.S. I found the picture on the Internet, but it is from the Navajo Loop Trail at Bryce National Park. It's short (just 1.3 miles) but it's the greatest trail I have hiked in my limited experience. I thought it related to the poem because there aren't any flowers in this scene and the blue sky is hard to see so far overhead. When you're at this point along the trail, it's difficult to imagine how you'll ever get out. It's rocky, slick and steep in places, and you don't always get to pick which way you'd like to go. You just have to follow the course water has taken over the centuries and literally 'go with the flow.' But the overall experience is breathtaking! It's a great metaphor for life.

Back to School

Back to school means...
...no more sleeping in
...no more lazy afternoons at the pool
...no more messy car (We try harder to keep it clean for the carpool.)
...no more questions like, "What do you want to do today?"
...no more children lounging around the house

In short, no more irresponsibility.

I guess I hate the end of anything. Even though we tried to savor our weeks of freedom, on this eve of the first day of school I have pangs of regret. The season is over and we wasted precious time. We didn't value what we had. We didn't maximize the possibilities embodied in the very idea of summertime.

It's time now to return to alarm clocks, sack lunches, homework, and bedtimes. Every morning our family will scatter in all directions, and every evening we will reconvene at home - it's miraculous, really, how that happens.

We will all be more productive.

It's for the best - it really is - but I will miss the pitter patter of little feet around here. [Okay, they aren't so little anymore. Emily's feet have grown two and a half shoe sizes since spring!]

All of this reminds me of the last stanza of a Robert Frost poem called 'Reluctance.' I memorized these lines a long time ago and think of them at melancholy times like these, amazed by Frost's remarkable understanding of the human condition:

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than treason,
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with grace to reason
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or season?

Two Very Short Poems

Here is a short poem I would like to commit to memory:

"Happy the Man" by John Dryden

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
Who can call today his own.
He who, secure within, can say,
"Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine,
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been has been,
And I have had my hour."

I know about karma, but I had never heard it described like the tide below:

"A Creed" by Edward Markham

There is a destiny that makes us brothers
None goes his way alone
All that we send into the lives of others
Comes back into our own.

A Poem for Sunday

My aunt's comment (on my last entry) about another Gerard Manley Hopkins poem prompted me to go read that one, called "Spring and Fall," again. It's very beautiful and very, very profound (like Aunt Cathy herself). Then I Googled and read a few other Hopkins poems, some of which I had not read before. (He burned most of his poetry -- maybe even all of his poetry -- when he became a priest, fearing that it was too vain, so his total body of work is not very large. He started writing poetry again at the request of his fellow clergy.)

Then I read this one for the first time in many years, and I thought today being Sunday it would be very appropriate to post it. It's called "God's Grandeur" and it's full of 'sprung rhythm' like "Pied Beauty." Hopkins' poetry is really very modern considering how long ago it was written.

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil crushed.
Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade;
Bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell:
The soil is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods
With warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Hide the Paper Clips

It occurred to me today that I have not written on this blog about some of my favorite things: office supplies.

Only a few people on the planet know that a trip to Office Max for me is like a day at the mall for most other women. I could go crazy there, or at any office supply store, and I often have.

I think it goes back to my childhood when I sometimes visited my parents' workplaces and marveled at the depth and breadth of their supply cabinets, which I often organized as a surreptitious way of taking inventory while staying out of trouble.

I couldn't believe they had all of these supplies at their fingertips -- boxes and boxes of pencils, pens, rubber bands and paper clips, with letterhead, staple removers, triplicate forms, and, in my mother's case, working at the airport, luggage tags and hand cancellation stamps. It was heaven! I could be entertained for hours in the room behind the ticket counter or at my father's secretary's desk rolling pages of paper into IBM Selectric typewriters or adding columns of numbers on a 10-key machine for the sheer fun of it.

It's still a thrill. When I go into my husband's office, I'm surrounded by temptations: bulldog clips and Post-It notes and manilla envelopes and colored cardstock...

I can't explain it -- I just have a weakness for office supplies.

But of course there is a quote behind all of this, and it's in French because it was originally coined by Napoleon when he established a post-revolutionary meritocracy:

"La carriere ouverte aux talents"

(The tools to him who can use them.)

(The literal translation is 'the job is open to the talented ones.' Thomas Carlyle

changed it to the above translation.)

An English teacher of mine introduced me to this phrase when we were studying a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, Pied Beauty, which he wrote in 1877. We were discussing line 6 at the time. In my opinion, it's one of the greatest poems ever written:

Glory be to God for dappled things -
For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow ;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced - fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

'Mama's Mama' & 'Mother's Poem'

I came across the first poem below years ago in a book about running a ranch (whicle doing research for my non-fiction children's book) and I can't believe I haven't posted it here before, because I really like it and think of it often when I find myself complaining about 'work.'

It always makes me think of the second poem below, which is by Garrison Keillor. It's a much longer poem, so I will only post snippets here.

Thay're both funny!

Mama's Mama by Anonymous
Mama's Mama, on a cold winter day,
Milked the cows and fed them hay;
Slopped the hogs, saddled the mule,
Got seven children off to school.
Did a washing, scrubbed the floors,
Washed the windows and did the chores.
Cooked a dish of home-dried fruit,
Pressed her husband's Sunday suit,
Swept the parlor and made the bed,
Baked a dozen loaves of bread,
Split some firewood, lugged it in,
Enough to fill the kitchen bin.
Cleaned the lamps and put in oil,
Stewed some apples she thought might spoil;
Churned the butter, baked a cake,
Looked out and said, "For mercy's sake!
The calves are out of their pen!"
Went out and put them in again.
Gathered the eggs, and locked the stable;
Returned to the house and set the table,
Cooked a supper that was delicious,
Afterward washed all the dishes.
Fed the cat, sprinkled the clothes,
Mended a basket full of hose,
Then opened the organ and began to play,
"When you come to the end of the perfect day."

Mother's Poem by Garrison Keillor
Some mornings I get up at five.
With four to mother, one to wive,
I find the hours from light to dark
are not enough to matriarch
with goals for matriarchy high
among the apples of my eye.
. . . .
Negligence in the name of loveis just what we should have more of.
Don’t mother birds after some weeks of looking at those upturned beaks,
deliberately the food delay, hoping to hear their goslings say,
"What are these feathered, floppy things
attached to us? You think they’re wings?"
. . . .
My child, you have been betrayed.
The world you thought was neatly made,
its corners tucked in like a sheet,
is uncomposed and incomplete.

For years I carried on a hoax.
I made you think that scrambled yolks
or poached or boiled, fried or shirred,
are how they come out of the bird.
. . . .

(Actually, children discover their wings quite soon enough, it seems to me.)

Learning to Take Life As It Comes, Day 1

A little while ago I was thinking what a great day this has been, which was perplexing because there's no particular reason. I haven't done anything extraordinary at all, haven't seen anyone I don't normally see or created anything or spent much money.

Which got me thinking about why it's been so great. (Oh, I know - I tend to over-analyze. Okay, I will admit that I am the Queen of Over-Analysis, which explains my particularly bad case of Analysis Paralysis. I can deliberate over some issues for decades...)

And the reason why I think today has been so great is that I have taken it as it comes, moment by moment. I have not consulted my ubiquitous day planner -- not once. (Which makes me wonder, what have I forgotten to do today...? A momentary panic distracts me...)

When we showed up an hour early for my son's ACT this morning (for which I had awakened at 5:44am), I did not freak out. I used that "found time" to make a grocery list and do some shopping before the Saturday crowds. At home I processed laundry, one load after another, without tapping my foot waiting for the dryer to stop rotating so that I could proceed. I baked a cake this afternoon for no reason. My daughter Emily said, "It's been so long since we've had a random cake!" (meaning a cake which is not a birthday cake).

And in all of this I think I've discovered that pre-planning every aspect of your life is not all it's cracked up to be. For years I have been scheduling all of my time, never doing one thing without thinking about the next thing I have to do - and it's exhausting! I have been living a carefully measured existence. Every possible activity I might want to engage in has had to conform to (often imaginary or self-imposed) constraints of time, money, schedules....You can't really force life anyway -- to a certain extent you have to react to it. To a certain extent you have to take it as it comes, whether you want to or not.

Which makes me remember some lines by the poet Walt Whitman:

From this hour I ordain myself
Loos'd of limits and imaginary lines
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute
Listening to others, considering well what they say
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating
Gently, but with undeniable will
Divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.

I have alway considered these lines somewhat controversial because some limits are necessary and some lines are not imaginary but are essential to human happiness (at least to my own happiness), but I believe I will divest myself of the unnecessary 'holds that would hold me.'

I think I will practice taking life as it comes.

P.S. Last night I stuck a post-it note to my computer screen that said 'Cheryl Acton is fearless!' Nothing could be further fom the truth - but that philosophy has affected me all day and may also be responsible for my new outlook.

Some Day Brighteners

I saw the national weather report this morning -- frozen temperatures and ice everywhere, almost. So here are some amusing poems my daughter Emily discovered in a book we've had taking up shelf space since before she was born:

The Optimist (by Anonymous)

The optimist fell ten stories,
And at each window bar
He shouted to the folks inside,
"Doing all right so far!"

The Tiger (by John Gardner)

The tiger is a perfect saint
As long as you respect him;
But if he happens to say ain't
You'd better not correct him.

Humpty Dumpty (by Anonymous)

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Had scrambled eggs for breakfast again.

Mary Had a Little Lamb (by Anonymous)

Mary had a little lamb,
You've heard this tale before,
But did you know she passed her plate
And had a little more?

More Reflections on Parenting

As I was going to sleep last night, thinking, as usual, about my children, the imagery of this poem by Kahlil Gibran came to mind, and I thought I'd post it on my blog (primarily in reference to my dilemma of two days ago...it often takes me a while to resolve something in my mind, or even express it.) I liked the analogy represented in the poem - it has stayed with me since I first read it:

'On Parenting' by Kahlil Gibran

...

You may strive to be like them,

but seek not to make them like you,

For life goes not backward

nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees not the mark upon the path of the infinite

and he bends you with his might that his arrow

might go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be

for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies,

so he loves also the bow that is stable.

A Cowboy Poem du Jour: Dream Ranch

The dream ranch lies

Where cool streams flow

Through deep green meadows

Nourished by snow;

Where the horses are broke

And the boss is not,

Where it's not too cold

And never too hot.

There's hay in the manger

And straw in the stall

With plenty of oats to grain them all.

There's a house in the shade

And a spring on the hill

Where you hear the call of a whippoorwill.

Now the dream ranch, of course,

Just doesn't exist,

But if we didn't dream

think what we'd have missed.

(Colen H. Sweeten, Jr.)

Poem for Spring

Daffodils

by William Wordsworth

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.

Happy Valentine's Day

Wishing you a very

romantic

Valentine's Day!

Five carefully selected love poems (The last one, my favorite, was written by John Donne to his wife as he was embarking on a trip to France.)

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.
O, no, it is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the start to every wand'ring 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.
- William Shakespeare, Sonnet #116


A THING of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
- John Keats



Where true Love burns
Desire is Love's pure flame;
It is the reflex of our earthly frame,
That takes its meaning from the nobler part,
And but translates the language of the heart.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge




If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile, her look, her way
Of speaking gently, for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of ease on such a day"
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee, and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheek dry,
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
The breath goes now, and some day, No;

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.

But we, by a love so much refined,
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
- John Donne

Another Poem...in a Poetry Phase, I suppose

In searching my quote collection for a new email signature, I re-encountered this lovely poem. The author is unknown, but some experts think it may have been written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

It probably appealed to me today because it hints at spring...and all around me everything is covered in snow and ice.

This poem reminds me that as much as I admire nature, I do not experience it in a quiet, personal way enough.


The little cares that fretted me
I lost them yesterday
Among the fields, above the sea,
Among the winds at play,
Among the lowing of the herds,
The rustling of the trees,
Among the singing of the birds,
The humming of the bees.

The foolish fears of what might happen,
I cast them all away,
Among the clover-scented grass,
Among the new-mown hay,
Among the husking of the corn,
Where drowsy poppies nod,
Where ill thoughts die and good are born--
Out in the fields with God.

A Favorite New Year's Eve Poem

Thomas Hardy wrote this poem on New Year's Eve, 1899 as he awaited the dawn of a new century. At first blush it appears to be negative, but it is actually full of hope:

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

Poetic Food for Thought

I came across this poem and enjoyed thinking about it, so I thought I'd share it on my blog. It was written in 1895 by Sam Walter Foss, who must have been a very interesting person. It reminds me of modern-day cowboy poetry, which I enjoy not necessarily for its poetic quality but for its sentiment. Anyway, I hope you like it.

The Calf-Path

One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell—wether sheep
Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bell—wethers always do.
And from that day, o'er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made.
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because 'twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed — do not laugh -
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.
This forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And this, before men were aware,
A city's crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed this zigzag calf about
And o'er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way.
And lost one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.
A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf.
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.