Memaparkan catatan dengan label T.S. Eliot. Papar semua catatan
Memaparkan catatan dengan label T.S. Eliot. Papar semua catatan

Rabu, 5 April 2017

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ April



LIVE GIRAFFE CAM: April the Giraffe ready to give birth
HARPURSVILLE, N.Y.
April the Giraffe is  . . . ready to give birth at any moment! 
❤ ❤ ❤



“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.” 


"The first of April is the day we remember what 
we are the other 364 days of the year."
 ― Mark Twain


“April is the cruelest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain.”


A Year on Planet Earth (4 Seasons)



Midweek Motif ~ April


Where I live in the Northern Hemisphere, Spring is arriving in bulbs and budding trees, somewhat less abundant due to late frost.  Where Poets United's Rosemary lives, Fall approaches with lots and lots of rain.  Thanks to Rosemary, I include two April poems from Australia.

I always look forward to April!

❤ ❤ ❤


Your Challenge:  Write a new poem capturing the details of an outdoor scene or day in April.  

April flowers: Daisy and Sweet Pea


by Sara Teasdale

The roofs are shining from the rain.
The sparrows tritter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.

Yet the back-yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree--
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings in me. 





APRIL this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again, and butterflies.

There rings a hammering all day,
And shingles lie about the doors;
From orchards near and far away
The gray wood-pecker taps and bores,
And men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their play.

The larger streams run still and deep;
Noisy and swift the small brooks run.
Among the mullein stalks the sheep
Go up the hillside in the sun
Pensively; only you are gone,

You that alone I cared to keep. 

Autumn leaves observed in Centennial Park, Sydney.



April Rains
     by Allan Lake

Somewhere a small flood gate opens:
Rainstorm as a goddess
sings Garden in the Rain.
I lose tears throughout,
unable to dam the flow.

This is new, like those flowers
just outside my window,
not the ones near the door
that have given their best.
Their time, my time, the season.

Full moon last night,
its twin on the still lake.
We walked in silence knowing
what we were walking towards
but going forward because
that's all we can do
while walking hand in hand 
or alone.

Winter warms to spring;
summer sighs into autumn,
alias fall. I fell, as was my fate.
Mist, mushrooms, musts happen.
A petal, a leaf, a belief –
hosts of smallish wonders
bloom and pass and possibly
circle round again,
nudging the journey
of every sentient spore.

1st published in Poetry Matters 2016, then Poetica Christi Anthology 2017.

Used with permission of the poet. 


The Small Poem in Autumn

     © Rosemary Nissen 1990

The small poem of green leaves
and yellow leaves and red leaves
and green leaves turning yellow
and red leaves turning brown.

The small poem of green grass
and grey grass and silver grass
and black grass under shadow
and grasses beige and fawn.

The poem of the magpie’s song
rippling and gurgling in eloquent bursts
between perfect intervals of silence
each finished phrase a variation
extending the one before.

The small poem notes these down
in a half hour between sleep and work
before the clouds change and the sun moves
and the grey grass turns deep brown
and the magpie stops and leaves fall.


from Small Poems of April, Abalone Press (Three Bridges, Vic.) 1990
Used with the poet’s permission.
❤❤❤

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 ~ Books )


Sabtu, 12 November 2011

Classic Poetry: THE HIPPOPOTAMUS by T.S. Eliot



THE HIPPOPOTAMUS
by: T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
HE broad-backed hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.

Flesh-and-blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.

The hippo's feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends.

The 'potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Church from over sea.

At mating time the hippo's voice
Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Church, at being one with God.

The hippopotamus's day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way--
The Church can sleep and feed at once.

I saw the 'potamus take wing
Ascending from the damp savannas,
And quiring angels round him sing
The praise of God, in loud hosannas.

Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean
And him shall heavenly arms enfold,
Among the saints he shall be seen
Performing on a harp of gold.

He shall be washed as white as snow,
By all the martyr'd virgins kist,
While the True Church remains below
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.




"The Hippopotamus" is reprinted from Poems. T.S. Eliot. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1920
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) was born in St. Louis, Missouri, of an old New England family. He was educated at Harvard and did graduate work in philosophy at the Sorbonne, Harvard, and Merton College, Oxford. He settled in England, where he was for a time a schoolmaster and a bank clerk, and eventually literary editor for the publishing house Faber & Faber, of which he later became a director. He founded and, during the seventeen years of its publication (1922-1939), edited the exclusive and influential literary journal Criterion. In 1927, Eliot became a British citizen and about the same time entered the Anglican Church.Eliot has been one of the most daring innovators of twentieth-century poetry. Never compromising either with the public or indeed with language itself, he has followed his belief that poetry should aim at a representation of the complexities of modern civilization in language and that such representation necessarily leads to difficult poetry. Despite this difficulty his influence on modern poetic diction has been immense.


by A.M. Trumble


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