Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Gardens

“A visitor to a garden sees the successes, usually. The gardener remembers mistakes and losses, some for a long time, and imagines the garden in a year, and in an unimaginable future.”

― W.S. Merwin

Peonies by Matilda Browne (1907)

“The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.”
― Abraham Lincoln 

 

“We are exploring together. We are cultivating a garden together, backs to the sun. The question is a hoe in our hands and we are digging beneath the hard and crusty surface to the rich humus of our lives.”
― Parker J. Palmer

  

In the Garden by Olga Wisinger-Florian (1910)

Midweek Motif ~ Gardens

 "How does your garden grow?"  ~  is a line from a nursery rhyme, and it is today's challenge.  Your garden can be vegetables or flowers or herbs or mythic or futuristic or a memory.  It can be quite famous or one only you know.  Let us experience it in your new poem.

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The Garden of Love

By William Blake

 

I went to the Garden of Love,

And saw what I never had seen:

A Chapel was built in the midst,

Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,

And Thou shalt not. writ over the door;

So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,

That so many sweet flowers bore. 

And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tomb-stones where flowers should be:

And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,

And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

The Garden by Moonlight

By Amy Lowell

A black cat among roses,

Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon,

The sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock.

The garden is very still,   

It is dazed with moonlight,

Contented with perfume,

Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies.

Firefly lights open and vanish   

High as the tip buds of the golden glow

Low as the sweet alyssum flowers at my feet.

Moon-shimmer on leaves and trellises,

Moon-spikes shafting through the snow ball bush.   

Only the little faces of the ladies’ delight are alert and staring,

Only the cat, padding between the roses,

Shakes a branch and breaks the chequered pattern

As water is broken by the falling of a leaf.

Then you come,

And you are quiet like the garden,

And white like the alyssum flowers,   

And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies.

Ah, Beloved, do you see those orange lilies?

They knew my mother,

But who belonging to me will they know

When I am gone.

Sheltered Garden

By H. D.

I have had enough.

I gasp for breath.

Every way ends, every road,

every foot-path leads at last

to the hill-crest—

then you retrace your steps,

or find the same slope on the other side,

precipitate.

I have had enough—

border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax-lilies,

herbs, sweet-cress.

O for some sharp swish of a branch—

there is no scent of resin

in this place,

no taste of bark, of coarse weeds,

aromatic, astringent—

only border on border of scented pinks.

Have you seen fruit under cover

that wanted light—

pears wadded in cloth,

protected from the frost,

melons, almost ripe,

smothered in straw?

Why not let the pears cling

to the empty branch?

All your coaxing will only make

a bitter fruit—

let them cling, ripen of themselves,

test their own worth,

nipped, shriveled by the frost,

to fall at last but fair

with a russet coat.

Or the melon—

let it bleach yellow

in the winter light,

even tart to the taste—

it is better to taste of frost—

the exquisite frost—

than of wadding and of dead grass.

For this beauty,

beauty without strength,

chokes out life.

I want wind to break,

scatter these pink-stalks,

snap off their spiced heads,

fling them about with dead leaves—

spread the paths with twigs,

limbs broken off,

trail great pine branches,

hurled from some far wood

right across the melon-patch,

break pear and quince—

leave half-trees, torn, twisted

but showing the fight was valiant.

O to blot out this garden

to forget, to find a new beauty

in some terrible

wind-tortured place.

The Garden of Eden by Thomas Cole 1828

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

(Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Walk.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Gift(s)

 

“A friend is a gift you give yourself”— Robert Louis Steveenson

SOURCE

“Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.”— Albert Camus

        Midweek Motif ~ Gift(s)

A gift is sometimes so special that it’s treasured for lifetime.

Gifts are exchanged on special days or on no occasion at all. Just given away and received with love.

Remember O. Henry’s story The Gift of the Magi? Very special gifts were there.

Write about a gift you gave or received or wanted to give to someone or a gift you gave yourself.

You might also write about your likes or dislikes about giving or receiving a gift.

And what about gift of words or a gifted person? Yes, give them space too if you wish J

Here are a few Gift Poems for you:

The Gift Outright

by Robert Frost

The land was ours before we were the land’s.

She was our land more than a hundred years

Before we were her people. She was ours

In Massachusetts, in Virginia,

But we were England’s, still colonials,

Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,

Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

Something we were withholding made us weak

Until we found out that it was ourselves

We were withholding from our land of living,

And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright

(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)

To the land vaguely realizing westward,

But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,

Such as she was, such as she would become.

The Gift

by Rabindranath Tagore

O my love, what gift of mine
Shall I give you this dawn?
A morning song?
But morning does not last long—
The heat of the sun
Wilts like a flower
And songs that tire
Are done.

O friend, when you come to my gate.
At dusk
What is it you ask?
What shall I bring you?
A light?

A lamp from a secret corner of my silent house?
But will you want to take it with you
Down the crowded street?
Alas,
The wind will blow it out.

Whatever gifts are in my power to give you,
Be they flowers,
Be they gems for your neck
How can they please you
If in time they must surely wither,
Crack,
Lose lustre?
All that my hands can place in yours
Will slip through your fingers
And fall forgotten to the dust
To turn into dust.

Rather,
When you have leisure,
Wander idly through my garden in spring
And let an unknown, hidden flower’s scent startle you
Into sudden wondering—
Let that displaced moment
Be my gift.
Or if, as you peer your way down a shady avenue,
Suddenly, spilled
From the thick gathered tresses of evening
A single shivering fleck of sunset-light stops you,
Turns your daydreams to gold,
Let that light be an innocent
Gift.

Truest treasure is fleeting;
It sparkles for a moment, then goes.
It does not tell its name; its tune
Stops us in our tracks, its dance disappears
At the toss of an anklet
I know no way to it—
No hand, nor word can reach it.
Friend, whatever you take of it,
On your own,
Without asking, without knowing, let that
Be yours.
Anything I can give you is trifling—
Be it a flower, or a song.

A Gift

By Amy Lowell

See! I give myself to you, Beloved!
My words are little jars
For you to take and put upon a shelf.
Their shapes are quaint and beautiful,
And they have many pleasant colours and lusters
To recommend them.
Also the scent from them fills the room
With sweetness of flowers and crushed grasses.

When I shall have given you the last one,
You will have the whole of me,
But I shall be dead.

 Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

              (Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Picnic{s})

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Bonfires

“There may be a great fire in our soul, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke.” 

― Vincent van Gogh

“Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, 

as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire”

- Francois le Duc de la Rochefoucauld

An effigy of Guy Fawkes, burnt on a Guy Fawkes Night--
November 5th in England--to celebrate the failure of 
his assassination  attempt against King James I.

Midweek Motif ~ Bonfires

Bonfires are used in celebrations around the world including Australia, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Poland, Nordic countries, Turkey, and Slavic countries.

Is anything more fascinating than fire?  Anything more devastating?  Anything more Holy or Profane?  

Your Challenge:  

Build a poem around a bonfire.

I remember end-of-summer bonfires of leaves and dead wood
which cleared the land and made a centerpiece
for marshmallows and ghost stories.  

The Bonfire by Robert Frost

OH, let’s go up the hill and scare ourselves, 
As reckless as the best of them to-night, 
By setting fire to all the brush we piled 
With pitchy hands to wait for rain or snow. 
Oh, let’s not wait for rain to make it safe. 
The pile is ours: we dragged it bough on bough 
Down dark converging paths between the pines. 
Let’s not care what we do with it to-night. 

. . . .   (Read the rest HERE at PoemHunter.com)

Dreams in War Time BY AMY LOWELL

. . . . 

   IV

I painted the leaves of bushes red

And shouted: “Fire! Fire!”

But the neighbors only laughed.

“We cannot warm our hands at them,” they said.

Then they cut down my bushes,

And made a bonfire,

And danced about it.

But I covered my face and wept,

For ashes are not beautiful

Even in the dawn.

. . . .  

(Read the  rest HERE at The Poetry Foundation.)

For those who are new to Poets United:  

1. Post your "One Day in the Life of ..." poem on your site, and then link it here.
2. If you use a picture include its link.  
3. Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 
4. Leave a comment here.
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(Next week's Midweek Motif is Swimming.)

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Classic Poetry- "Petals" by Amy Lowell

Petals by Amy Lowell

Life is a stream
On which we strew
Petal by petal the flower of our heart;
The end lost in dream,
They float past our view,
We only watch their glad, early start.
Freighted with hope,
Crimsoned with joy,
We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;
Their widening scope,
Their distant employ,
We never shall know. And the stream as it flows
Sweeps them away,
Each one is gone
Ever beyond into infinite ways.
We alone stay
While years hurry on,
The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.

Amy Lowell (1874-1925), American Imagist poet, was a woman of great accomplishment. She was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, to a prominent family of high-achievers. Her environment was literary and sophisticated, and when she left private school at 17 to care for her elderly parents, she embarked on a program of self-education.

Her poetic career began in 1902 when she saw Eleonora Duse, a famous actress, perform on stage. Overcome with Eleonora's beauty and talent, she wrote her first poem addressed to the actress. They met only a couple times and never developed a relationship, but Eleonora inspired many poems from Amy and triggered her career.


Ada Russell, another actress, became the love of Amy's life. She met Ada in 1909 and they remained together until Amy's death in 1925. Amy wrote many, many poems about Ada. In the beginning, as with her previous poems about women, she wrote in such a way that only those who knew the inspiration for a poem would recognize its lesbian content. But as time went on, she censored her work less and less. By the time she wrote Pictures of the Floating World, her poems about Ada were much more blatantly erotic. The series "Planes of Personality: Two Speak Together" chronicles their relationship, including the intensely erotic poem "A Decade" that celebrates their tenth anniversary.

by A.M. Trumble

a collection of Amy Lowell's poems