Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Weather

   

“Who cares about the clouds when we are together? Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.”— Dale Evans

SOURCE

“Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”— Oscar Wilde

    Midweek Motif ~ Weather

In spite of Wilde’s critical observations about some people we are to talk of Weather today. And that too as imaginative poets.

Weather phenomena have become common topics of conversations worldwide, as humans have altered their environment and much damaged their relationship with nature.

Very recently, having gone without a single drop of rain for about 200 days at a stretch Chennai finally got a little rain and way too little for a city experiencing its worst water crisis in 30 years.

Let’s see what face of weather peeps in your lines: merciful, catastrophic or metaphoric.

A few poems to share with you:

Fair Weather

by Dorothy Parker

This level reach of blue is not my sea;
Here are sweet waters, pretty in the sun,
Whose quiet ripples meet obediently
A marked and measured line, one after one.
This is no sea of mine. that humbly laves
Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm.
I have a need of wilder, crueler waves;
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.

So let a love beat over me again,
Loosing its million desperate breakers wide;
Sudden and terrible to rise and wane;
Roaring the heavens apart; a reckless tide
That casts upon the heart, as it recedes,
Splinters and spars and dripping, salty weeds. 

A Process In The Weather Of The Heart

by Dylan Thomas

A process in the weather of the heart
Turns damp to dry; the golden shot
Storms in the freezing tomb.
A weather in the quarter of the veins
Turns night to day; blood in their suns
Lights up the living worm.

A process in the eye forewarns
The bones of blindness; and the womb
Drives in a death as life leaks out.

A darkness in the weather of the eye
Is half its light; the fathomed sea
Breaks on unangled land.
The seed that makes a forest of the loin
Forks half its fruit; and half drops down,
Slow in a sleeping wind.

A weather in the flesh and bone
Is damp and dry; the quick and dead
Move like two ghosts before the eye.

A process in the weather of the world
Turns ghost to ghost; each mothered child
Sits in their double shade.
A process blows the moon into the sun,
Pulls down the shabby curtains of the skin;
And the heart gives up its dead. 

Here is a link to a fun poem:

Problems With Hurricanes by Victor Hernández Cruz

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

(Next week Sanaa’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Perfume)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Surprise!

“If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it . . . .” 

― Heraclitus

"Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise." ― Alice Walker

The Muse, Modeled by Nina Longshadow at Opus

Midweek Motif ~  Surprise!

If only life could be serene with no upheavals and few changes in relationships. No surprises, please! But for waking up from the laziness that threatens daily perception? Nothing is better than surprise.

When were you last pleasantly surprised?

Your challenge: Write a new poem with surprise as a recurring motif.  The poem itself need not surprise, but if you can wake us up a little through a pleasant surprise, do!

Surgery

Apparently With No Surprise 

by Emily Dickinson

Apparently with no surprise,
To any happy flower,
The frost beheads it at its play,
In accidental power.
The blond assassin passes on.
The sun proceeds unmoved,
To measure off another day,
For an approving God.

Surprise by Dorothy Parker

My heart went fluttering with fear

Lest you should go, and leave me here

To beat my breast and rock my head

And stretch me sleepless on my bed.

Ah, clear they see and true they say

That one shall weep, and one shall stray

For such is Love's unvarying law....

I never thought, I never saw

That I should be the first to go;

How pleasant that it happened so! 

source

The Words Under the Words

BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

for Sitti Khadra, north of Jerusalem

My grandmother’s hands recognize grapes,

the damp shine of a goat’s new skin.

When I was sick they followed me,

I woke from the long fever to find them

covering my head like cool prayers.

My grandmother’s days are made of bread,

a round pat-pat and the slow baking.

She waits by the oven watching a strange car

circle the streets. Maybe it holds her son,

lost to America. More often, tourists,

who kneel and weep at mysterious shrines.

She knows how often mail arrives,

how rarely there is a letter.

When one comes, she announces it, a miracle,

listening to it read again and again

in the dim evening light.

My grandmother’s voice says nothing can surprise her.

Take her the shotgun wound and the crippled baby.

She knows the spaces we travel through,

the messages we cannot send—our voices are short

and would get lost on the journey.

Farewell to the husband’s coat,

the ones she has loved and nourished,

who fly from her like seeds into a deep sky.

They will plant themselves. We will all die.

My grandmother’s eyes say Allah is everywhere, even in death.

When she talks of the orchard and the new olive press,

when she tells the stories of Joha and his foolish wisdoms,

He is her first thought, what she really thinks of is His name.

“Answer, if you hear the words under the words—

otherwise it is just a world with a lot of rough edges,

difficult to get through, and our pockets full of stones.”

source

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 Peace on Earth.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Autumn

  “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”— Albert Camus

SOURCE

“When autumn darkness falls, what we will remember are the small acts of kindness: a cake, a hug, an invitation to talk, and every single rose. These are all expressions of a nation coming together and caring about its people.”— Jens Stoltenberg

        Midweek Motif ~ Autumn

In West Bengal, India, where I live Autumn has two entities; Early, (we call it Sharat) and Late (known as Hemanta). As the Monsoon peters out, Sharat, slightly warm, sets in with a richness of fulfillment and festivity all around. While Hemanta has a distinct nip in the air; it is a pre-winter season. Our poets eulogize both.

In the US Autumn is Fall, full of vibrant colors. Foliage lights up with brilliant, yellow, red, orange. Very much scenic and beautiful. A time for lighting a fire in the fireplace. Robert Frost sings, “O hushed October morning mild, / Begin the hours of this day slow.” It’s a preparation season for the approaching 

winter.

John Keats says, “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness….thou hast thy music too, —”

And we are all ears, poets, for your autumnal music:

On A Withered Branch

by Matsuo Basho

On a withered branch

A crow has alighted

Nightfall in autumn

Autumn

by Thomas Ernest Hulme

 A touch of cold in the Autumn night

I walked abroad,

And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge

Like a red-faced farmer.

I did not stop to speak, but nodded;

And round about were the wistful stars

With white faces like town children.

November Night

by Adelaide Crapsey                       

Listen.

With faint dry sound,

Like steps of passing ghosts,

The Leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees

And fall.

Autumn

by Rainer Maria Rilke

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,

as if orchards were dying high in space.

Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no”.

 And tonight the heavy earth is falling

away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.

And look at the other one. It’s in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands

Infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

Autumn Valentine

by Dorothy Parker

In May my heart was breaking-

Oh, wide the wound, and deep!

And bitter it beat at waking,

And sore it split in sleep.

And when it came November,

I sought my heart, and sighed,

“Poor thing, do you remember?”

“What heart was that?” it cried.

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 ~ Dark Moon, New Moon.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Finding A Sanctuary

“Our listening creates a sanctuary for the homeless parts within another person” — Rachel Naomi Remen

SOURCE

“So as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all of the horrors of the half-lived life” — Herman Melville, Moby Dick

                                        

Midweek Motif ~ Finding A  Sanctuary

In the din and bustle of daily life all need a little sanctuary to rest, heal and revive; a space to de-clutter stressful thoughts; a moment to usher in a glimmer of hope; a Tahiti, to take care of the soul, and find one self in safety, comfort and peace.   

Write about finding such a sanctuary.

You might also look at a wildlife sanctuary or a sanctuary for political refugee or a sanctuary for the homeless. Possibilities are many.

Walk us to this isle of grace today:

Sanctuary

by Dorothy Parker

My land is bare of chattering folk;

The clouds are low along the ridges,

And sweet’s the air with curly smoke

From all my burning bridges

Sanctuary

by Elinor Morton Wylie

This is the bricklayer; hear the thud
Of his heavy load dumped down on stone.
His lustrous bricks are brighter than blood,
His smoking mortar whiter than bone.

Set each sharp-edged, fire-bitten brick
Straight by the plumb-line's shivering length;
Make my marvellous wall so thick
Dead nor living may shake its strength.

Full as a crystal cup with drink
Is my cell with dreams, and quiet, and cool. . .
Stop, old man! You must leave a chink;
How can I breathe? You can't, you fool!

Sanctuary

by Jean Valentine

People pray to each other. The way I say 'you' to someone else,
respectfully, intimately, desperately. The way someone says
'you' to me, hopefully, expectantly, intensely ...
—Huub Oosterhuis


You who I don't know I don't know how to talk to you

—What is it like for you there?

Here ... well, wanting solitude; and talk; friendship—
The uses of solitude. To imagine; to hear.
Learning braille. To imagine other solitudes.
But they will not be mine;
to wait, in the quiet; not to scatter the voices—

What are you afraid of?

What will happen. All this leaving. And meetings, yes. But death.
What happens when you die?

"... not scatter the voices,"

Drown out. Not make a house, out of my own words. To be quiet in
another throat; other eyes; listen for what it is like there. What
word. What silence. Allowing. Uncertain: to drift, in the
restlessness ... Repose. To run like water—

What is it like there, right now?

Listen: the crowding of the street; the room. Everyone hunches in
against the crowding; holding their breath: against dread.

What do you dread?

What happens when you die?

What do you dread, in this room, now?

Not listening. Now. Not watching. Safe inside my own skin.
To die, not having listened. Not having asked ... To have scattered
life.

Yes I know: the thread you have to keep finding, over again, to
follow it back to life; I know. Impossible, sometimes. 

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 ~ Human Trafficking)

                               

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Love

Fraternal love (Prehispanic sculpture from 250–900 AD, of Huastec origin). 
Museum of Anthropology in Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico

“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, 

how much the heart can hold.” 
― Zelda Fitzgerald

“I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me,

'I love you.' ... There is an African saying  which is:        

Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.” 

― Maya Angelou

“Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, 

it has to be made, like bread; remade

 all the time, made new.” 

― Ursula K. Le Guin

"Ai," the traditional Chinese character
for love (愛) consists of a heart (心, middle)
 inside of "accept," "feel," or "perceive," (受)
which shows a graceful emotion.
It can also be interpreted as a hand
offering one's heart to another hand.

Midweek Motif ~ Love

Would we be poets and never speak of love?  

Yesterday some of us celebrated Valentine's Day.  

I celebrated my BFF's birthday.  She collects Birthday/Valentine cards, but so few are made that I rarely find one.  

But LOVE!  Is that rare too?  

Can we celebrate it daily?  What do you wish 

you had said to someone yesterday?  

Your Challenge:  Deeply and with a few pointed words, speak of love in a new poem.

Comment by Dorothy Parker

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

A medley of extemporanea;

And love is a thing that can never go wrong;

And I am Marie of Roumania.

❣

                                  A Red, Red Rose BY ROBERT BURNS

O my Luve is like a red, red rose 

   That’s newly sprung in June; 

O my Luve is like the melody 

   That’s sweetly played in tune. 

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass, 

   So deep in luve am I; 

And I will luve thee still, my dear, 

   Till a’ the seas gang dry. 

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear, 

   And the rocks melt wi’ the sun; 

I will love thee still, my dear, 

   While the sands o’ life shall run. 

And fare thee weel, my only luve! 

   And fare thee weel awhile! 

And I will come again, my luve, 

   Though it were ten thousand mile.

❦

Parkinson’s Disease  BY GALWAY KINNELL

While spoon-feeding him with one hand   

she holds his hand with her other hand,   

or rather lets it rest on top of his, 

which is permanently clenched shut.   

When he turns his head away, she reaches   

around and puts in the spoonful blind.   

He will not accept the next morsel 

until he has completely chewed this one.   

His bright squint tells her he finds 

the shrimp she has just put in delicious. 

Next to the voice and touch of those we love,   



food may be our last pleasure on earth— 

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE.)





💗

Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways

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BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

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How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 

For the ends of being and ideal grace. 

I love thee to the level of every day’s 

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. 

I love thee freely, as men strive for right; 

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. 

I love thee with the passion put to use 

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. 

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, 

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, 

I shall but love thee better after death.

💕

Excerpt from King Lear
CORDELIA

Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.



Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me; I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.

 💖




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 ~ Nostalgia)