Poet's Corner

[beautress]

Would stolen honey taste as sweet,
if bees didn't have a sting?
If sky and sun and trees didn't meet,
would songbirds bother to sing?

maple syrup goes
into the coffee with cream
no sugar nor honey
migrant birds gone to San Juan sigh

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www.audubon.org

 

[expat500]

 

[Blossom]

 

[expat500]

You're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry. ~J.D. Salinger

 

[expat500]

If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not “washing the dishes to wash the dishes.” What’s more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can’t wash the dishes, the chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future—and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

 

[Blossom]

 

[expat500]

American Literature.​

·
"Good Hours" by Robert Frost

I had for my winter evening walk—
No one at all with whom to talk,
But I had the cottages in a row
Up to their shining eyes in snow.
And I thought I had the folk within:
I had the sound of a violin;
I had a glimpse through curtain laces
Of youthful forms and youthful faces.
I had such company outward bound.
I went till there were no cottages found.
I turned and repented, but coming back
I saw no window but that was black.
Over the snow my creaking feet
Disturbed the slumbering village street
Like profanation, by your leave,
At ten o’clock of a winter eve.

(Book: The Poetry of Robert Frost.)

 

[Blossom]

 

[Blues Man]

Alone
Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ‘round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view—

Edgar Allan Poe. "Alone." Family Friend Poems, Alone By Edgar Allan Poe, Famous Sad Poem

 

[expat500]

"The House With Nobody In It"

One of my favorite poems, this piece was written by Joyce Kilmer.
Kilmer wrote this poem in 1914 and in April 1917, he enlisted and was deployed to Europe to fight in WWI. He would not survive as he was K.I.A. by a German sniper's bullet on July 30, 1918 in France. He was 32 years old.

"Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.
I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn’t haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn’t be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.
This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.
If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I’d put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I’d buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I’d find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.
Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there’s nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.
But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby’s laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it’s left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.
So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart."

 

[expat500]

I heard this story from the legendary Rabbi Mendel Futerfas

Reb Mendel Futerfas was a famous Chabad mashpia and Chasid. He was involved in maintaining the underground network of Yeshivat Tomchei Temimim and overseeing the escape of hundreds of Lubavitcher Chasidim from the USSR in 1946. As a result of these efforts, Reb Mendel was caught and sent to the Siberian Gulag for eight years. He was known for his sharp wit and humor, and his well-attended farbrengens were interspersed with life lessons creatively deduced from his experiences in Siberia.

He told a story about a bird who found his lessons in the most unlikely of places:

Once upon a time, there was a nonconforming bird who decided not to fly south for the winter. However, soon the weather turned so cold that he reluctantly started southward. In a short time, ice began to form on his wings and he fell to earth in a barnyard, almost frozen.
A cow passed by and crapped on the little bird. The bird thought it was the end. But then the manure warmed him and defrosted his wings. Warm and happy, able to breathe, he started to sing and dance in crap.
Just then a large cat came by and hearing the chirping, investigated the sounds. The cat cleared away the manure, found the chirping bird and promptly ate him.

Now, it may seem that there are no lessons here, but there are. In fact, there are three that Reb Mendel taught us:
1. Everyone who craps on you is not necessarily your enemy.
2. Everyone who gets you out of crap is not necessarily your friend.
3. If you’re warm and happy in a pile of crap, keep your mouth shut.

 

[Blossom]

 

[Blossom]

 

[expat500]

And, if you ever did
Come back
To me
What, would I tell
Of the times you had missed
Or, the times I had missed you

A little poem by Athey Thompson

Taken from A Little Book Of Poetry by Athey Thompson

Art by Dillon Samuelson.

 

[Phactotum]

Since one child, heard this funny ringing in my ear
Some vow, maybe Angels singing in my ear
Since they can ---now everything is very clear!
As you can catch #$%& that's taken every where...
So many rapes by #$%& has murked the Heart, in me.
I've tried suicide. But H-E-L-L wanted no part of me!
So its HEAVENLY RICHES, since Earthly ones depart from me
And I'm not perfect; God's Will still be hard for me!

 

[Blossom]

 

[Blues Man]

 

[Blossom]

 

[expat500]

 

[expat500]