Autumn Poetry

 

 

 

Autumn 

by Amy Lowell

All day I have watched the purple vine leaves

Fall into the water.

And now in the moonlight they still fall,

But each leaf is fringed with silver.

Source: Poetry

Autumn Sky 

by Charles Simic

In my great grandmother's time, 

All one needed was a broom 

To get to see places 

And give the geese a chase in the sky. 

               • 

The stars know everything, 

So we try to read their minds. 

As distant as they are, 

We choose to whisper in their presence. 

               • 

Oh Cynthia, 

Take a clock that has lost its hands 

For a ride. 

Get me a room at Hotel Eternity 

Where Time likes to stop now and then. 

               • 

Come, lovers of dark corners, 

The sky says, 

And sit in one of my dark corners. 

There are tasty little zeroes 

In the peanut dish tonight.

Source: Poetry

Day in Autumn

by Ranier Maria Rilke

Translated by Mary Kinzie

After the summer's yield, Lord, it is time 

to let your shadow lengthen on the sundials 

and in the pastures let the rough winds fly. 

As for the final fruits, coax them to roundness. 

Direct on them two days of warmer light 

to hale them golden toward their term, and harry 

the last few drops of sweetness through the wine. 

Whoever's homeless now, will build no shelter; 

who lives alone will live indefinitely so, 

waking up to read a little, draft long letters,   

and, along the city's avenues, 

fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen.

Source: Poetry

The Heat of Autumn

by Jane Hirshfield

 

The heat of autumn 

is different from the heat of summer.   

One ripens apples, the other turns them to cider.   

One is a dock you walk out on,   

the other the spine of a thin swimming horse 

and the river each day a full measure colder.   

A man with cancer leaves his wife for his lover. 

Before he goes she straightens his belts in the closet,   

rearranges the socks and sweaters inside the dresser 

by color. That’s autumn heat: 

her hand placing silver buckles with silver,   

gold buckles with gold, setting each   

on the hook it belongs on in a closet soon to be empty,   

and calling it pleasure.

Jane Hirshfield, "The Heat of Autumn" from After. Copyright © 2006 by Jane Hirshfield.  

Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

Stars 

by Marjorie Pickthall

Now in the West the slender moon lies low, 

And now Orion glimmers through the trees, 

Clearing the earth with even pace and slow, 

And now the stately-moving Pleiades, 

In that soft infinite darkness overhead 

Hang jewel-wise upon a silver thread. 

And all the lonelier stars that have their place, 

Calm lamps within the distant southern sky, 

And planet-dust upon the edge of space, 

Look down upon the fretful world, and I 

Look up to outer vastness unafraid 

And see the stars which sang when earth was made. 

Buffalo Dusk 

by Carl Sandburg

The buffaloes are gone.

And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.

Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs, their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,

Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.

And the buffaloes are gone.

Source: The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (Harcourt Brace Iovanovich Inc., 1970)

April Poem A Day Challenge Day 18

Oh, just when we were on a roll, along comes another title poem prompt to slow me down.

Poetic Asides: For today's prompt, take the phrase "To (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the poem. Some examples: "To the left, to the left," "To write or not to write," "To Kill a Hummingbird," "To the Doghouse," etc. There are so many possibilities.

There may be many possibilities, but I wasn't finding them. "To..." implies an action, a direction, some sort of orderly process of events. "To Infinity, and Beyond", "To Die Another Day" "To Hell and Back", not to mention other movie titles and catch phrases. As soon as I brain dumped those, other familiar phrases started arising. "Too Many Cooks Spoil The Broth". Oops, that was a Too, not a To. Strike that.

Appeals to the Muse went unanswered. Finally, I just started writing something. And came up with a poem titled: To Make Something Out Of Nothing. Pretty appropriate.

I wasn't entirely happy with it, so I wrote another poem, and decided to tack a To title on later. "To The West, Out Of The Sun, Rode The Stranger" is what evolved. It's not quite the John Wayne poem you think it is, but hey, I'm out west, the sun is setting, and I'm pretty strange, so there you go.

Here is a "Two" picture, (As in two geese seen on a walk) and a poem by Argentinean poet Jorge Luis Borges.


The Other Tiger
by Jorge Luis Borges

A tiger comes to mind. The twilight here
Exalts the vast and busy Library
And seems to set the bookshelves back in gloom;
Innocent, ruthless, bloodstained, sleek
It wanders through its forest and its day
Printing a track along the muddy banks
Of sluggish streams whose names it does not know
(In its world there are no names or past
Or time to come, only the vivid now)
And makes its way across wild distances
Sniffing the braided labyrinth of smells
And in the wind picking the smell of dawn
And tantalizing scent of grazing deer;
Among the bamboo's slanting stripes I glimpse
The tiger's stripes and sense the bony frame
Under the splendid, quivering cover of skin.
Curving oceans and the planet's wastes keep us
Apart in vain; from here in a house far off
In South America I dream of you,
Track you, O tiger of the Ganges' banks.

It strikes me now as evening fills my soul
That the tiger addressed in my poem
Is a shadowy beast, a tiger of symbols
And scraps picked up at random out of books,
A string of labored tropes that have no life,
And not the fated tiger, the deadly jewel
That under sun or stars or changing moon
Goes on in Bengal or Sumatra fulfilling
Its rounds of love and indolence and death.
To the tiger of symbols I hold opposed
The one that's real, the one whose blood runs hot
As it cuts down a herd of buffaloes,
And that today, this August third, nineteen
Fifty-nine, throws its shadow on the grass;
But by the act of giving it a name,
By trying to fix the limits of its world,
It becomes a fiction not a living beast,
Not a tiger out roaming the wilds of earth.

We'll hunt for a third tiger now, but like
The others this one too will be a form
Of what I dream, a structure of words, and not
The flesh and one tiger that beyond all myths
Paces the earth. I know these things quite well,
Yet nonetheless some force keeps driving me
In this vague, unreasonable, and ancient quest,
And I go on pursuing through the hours
Another tiger, the beast not found in verse.


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April Poem A Day Challenge Day 17

Since I write quite a few science poems, this was a good prompt for me.

Poetic Asides: For today's prompt, write a science poem. Science encompasses a lot, so your poem doesn't have to be scientific to still be a science poem. For instance, you could have a poem titled something like "The Science of Love," and then examine a relationship. Voila! A science poem! Of course, it'll be interesting to see how many poets talk about volcanoes and single cell organisms, not to mention finding out how many "mad scientists" are out there.

After looking through what I've written in the past I'd say they fall into a few specific categories – physics, astronomy, psychology, and biology. Most of my poems hinge on psychological ideas, but the lure of physics is strong. Since I don't really understand it, writing poetry about it helps. Same with biology.

Back in junior high I wanted to be an ornithologist. I still love birds - and flying. I've been fascinated by flight as long as I can remember, so if it has wings, organic, wooden or metallic, I'm interested. Also space, moving through it, what's out there, all that jazz. I've written about my fascination with a certain star formation before, and sure enough, I had to write another poem about Orion, a "Constellation Preoccupation".

I also wrote a cognitive psychology poem that was rather short and pointed, and then the Muse decided to gift me with a few more ideas, so now I have a nice trio of science type poems thanks to the prompt, including one that explores "The Theory of Everything." So much in science to write about. It is a nice contrast to the historical, mythological, theological poems I've written of late. Of course, now and then, science and religion cross paths in a poem. The results are usually interesting, and not entirely what I expected. The Muse likes to keep me guessing.

Another poem trio to match my just written poem trio, a bit of old and a bit of new.



Telescope
by Louise Glück


There is a moment after you move your eye away
when you forget where you are
because you've been living, it seems,
somewhere else, in the silence of the night sky.

You've been stopped being here in the world
You're in a different place
a place where human life has no meaning.

You're not a creature in a body.
You exist as the stars exist,
participating in their stillness, their immensity.

Then you're in the world again.
An night, on a cold hill,
taking the telescope apart.

You realize afterward
not that the image is false
but the relation is false.

You see again how far away
each thing is from every other thing.




Peace On Earth
by William Carlos Williams

The Archer is wake!
The Swan is flying!
Gold against blue
An Arrow is lying.
There is hunting in heaven--
Sleep safe till to-morrow.

The Bears are abroad!
The Eagle is screaming!
Gold against blue
Their eyes are gleaming!
Sleep!
Sleep safe till to-morrow.

The Sisters lie
With their arms intertwining;
Gold against blue
Their hair is shining!
The Serpent writhes!
Orion is listening!
Gold against blue
His sword is glistening!
Sleep!
There is hunting in heaven--
Sleep safe till to-morrow.



Germs
by Walt Whitman

Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts,
The ones known, and the ones unknown, the ones on the stars,
The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped,
Wonders as of those countries, the soil, trees, cities, inhabitants,
whatever they may be,
Splendid suns, the moons and rings, the countless combinations and effects,
Such-like, and as good as such-like, visible here or anywhere, stand
provided for a handful of space, which I extend my arm and
half enclose with my hand,
That containing the start of each and all, the virtue, the germs of all.


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April Poem A Day Challenge Day 13

"Every poem I write is a love poem." Maybe a strange statement for me to make, but a true one.

From Poetic Asides: Here are today's two prompts:
1. Write a love poem.
2. Write an anti-love poem.

For this prompt I wrote one 'love' poem, and two 'anti-love' poems. The anti poems were not necessarily against love or a lover, but a lament about the difficulties of sifting through all the baggage surrounding the idea of love and maybe stumbling on the actual thing.

I think to write a good love poem you need to forge an emotional connection with the reader, give them something they can identify with – the excitement of first love, rhythm of comfortable love, bewilderment of failed love. It's easy to be cruel and unkind, especially to yourself, far harder to tap honest love and shove it forth into the light for all to see. Even anti-love was love at one time.

Since National Poetry Month is all about expanding poetic horizons, I have two poems and two poets for you today, both of which I reread and continually find new meaning in their work. For either poet, what seems simple at first look is not, what starts out appearing complex, is really quite simple.

What are some of your favorite love poems, that do not appear that way initially?

The first of my favorite 'love' poems comes from a Christian Mystic, Meister Eckhart. The second is by Robert Penn Warren, and does not seem to be a love poem at all.

But that's the way I see it.

The Hope of Loving
by Meister Eckhart


What keeps us alive, what allows us to endure?
I think it is the hope of loving,
or being loved.

I heard a fable once about the sun going on a journey
to find its source, and how the moon wept
without her lover’s
warm gaze.

We weep when light does not reach our hearts. We wither
like fields if someone close
does not rain their
kindness
upon
us.


*****

Trying to Tell You Something
by Robert Penn Warren

All things lean at you, and some are
Trying to tell you something, though of some

The heart is too full for speech. On a hill, the oak,
Immense, older than Jamestown or God, splitting

With its own weight at the great inverted
Crotch, air-spread and ice-hung, ringed with iron

Like barrel-hoops, only heavier, massive rods
Running through and bolted, and higher, the cables,

Which in summer are hidden by green leaves—the oak,
It is trying to tell you something. It wants,

In its fullness of years, to describe to you
What happens on a December night when

It stands alone in a world of whiteness. The moon is full.
You can hear the stars crackle in their high brightness.

It is ten below zero, and the iron
Of hoops and reinforcement rods is continuing to contract.

There is the rhythm of a slow throb, like pain. The wind,
Northwest, is steady, and in the wind, the cables,

In a thin-honed and disinfectant purity, like
A dentist’s drill, sing. They sing

Of truth, and its beauty. The oak
Wants to declare this to you, so that you

Will not be unprepared when, some December night,
You stand on a hill, in a world of whiteness, and

Stare into the crackling absoluteness of the sky. The oak
Wants to tell you because, at that moment,

In your own head, the cables will sing
With a thin-honed and disinfectant purity,

And no one can predict the consequences.



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April Poem A Day Challenge Day 8

I was wondering when we would get to the inanimate object poem.These prompts are always fun to do. Who doesn't love an inside look at something we normally ignore?

From Poetic Asides: For today's prompt, pick a tool, make that the title of your poem, and write your poem. There are the more obvious tools, of course: hammer, screwdriver, wrench, etc. But there also less obvious tools and/or specialized tools available as well. Before attacking this poem, you may want to just think about the various possibilities first. Or just write.

Of course my mind discarded hammers, screwdrivers and wrenches immediately - I would love to revisit the common hammer and see what I could come up with poem wise, but picking the common object and trying to say something new - and bring new vision to readers - was going to take more brainpower than I had to dedicate to the poem today. Yes, even I have to actually work at work at times. No multi-tasking today, so it had to be a straightforward, shoot from the hip sort of poem.

My thoughts turned to the military, and how weapons are merely tools to get the job done. So my poem became "M-16". Neither pro-war, nor anti-war, just a statement of how things are.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite 'tool' poems by a favorite poet. The last line is one that has haunted me since I first read it. So cold, impersonal - so true. Tools do what tools do, there is no changing that. And life goes on.


Out, Out--

by Robert Frost

The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap—
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart—
He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off—
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.



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Marmion and Other Deceptions

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!"

Back when I was that odd kid in high school and college that read Shakespeare for fun, I rummaged around for other authors of interest. In one of those strange coincidences, a friend recommended Sir Walter Scott. "You have to read Marmion," he said, "It mentions your name. And that quote you like? It's not Shakespeare, that's why you can't find it. It's Sir Walter Scott." So I secured my copy of Marmion, A Tale Of Flodden Field and off I read.

Marmion is a very long narrative poem written in six cantos and published in 1808. It's about the battle of Flodden Field in 1513, where the English army killed King James IV and slaughtered the Scottish army. It has enough operatic overtones to keep even Gabriele happy, I think.

The poem talks of Lord Marmion, who is interested in Clara de Clare, who is already engaged to Ralph De Wilton. Not to be thwarted, Lord Marmion forges a letter to get De Wilton in deep trouble. He is helped by his present mistress, Constance De Beverley, who breaks her vows and helps with the letter in hopes of winning Marmion. De Wilton claims the right to face Marmion in combat, and is defeated. Clara de Clare runs and hides from Marmion in a convent. Constance was walled up alive as punishment for breaking her vows, but manages to get a letter out proving De Wilton's innocence. De Wilton is reinstated as a knight after proving his innocence, and heads off to find Marmion and demand justice.

Meanwhile, Marmion heads for Scotland to supposedly talk peace. While he is there, the Battle of Flodden Field takes place, and Marmion is eventually killed in the battle. (Very nice, drawn out death scene) Ralph De Wilton arrives just in time to take part in the battle, fights with honor and regains all the status he lost because of Marmion's treachery. De Wilton marries Clara and you assume they live happily ever after...

(from First Canto – description of Marmion)

Along the bridge Lord Marmion rode,
Proudly his red-roan charger trode,
His helm hung at the saddlebow;
Well by his visage you might know
He was a stalwart knight, and keen,
And had in many a battle been;
The scar on his brown cheek revealed
A token true of Bosworth field;
His eyebrow dark, and eye of fire,
Showed spirit proud and prompt to ire;
Yet lines of thought upon his cheek
Did deep design and counsel speak.
His forehead, by his casque worn bare,
His thick moustache, and curly hair,
Coal-black, and grizzled here and there,
But more through toil than age;
His square-turned joints, and strength of limb,
Showed him no carpet knight so trim,
But in close fight a champion grim,
In camps a leader sage.


(Canto Two – Constance speaks to the Abbot)

“I speak not to implore your grace,
Well know I, for one minute’s space
Successless might I sue:
Nor do I speak your prayers to gain -For
if a death of lingering pain,
To cleanse my sins, be penance vain,
Vain are your masses too.
I listened to a traitor’s tale,
I left the convent and the veil;
For three long years I bowed my pride,
A horse-boy in his train to ride;
And well my folly’s meed he gave,
Who forfeited, to be his slave,
All here, and all beyond the grave.
He saw young Clara’s face more fair,
He knew her of broad lands the heir,
Forgot his vows, his faith forswore,
And Constance was beloved no more.
’Tis an old tale, and often told;.
But did my fate and wish agree,
Ne’er had been read, in story old,
Of maiden true betrayed for gold,
That loved, or was avenged, like me."

(Canto Sixth)

The instant that Fitz-Eustace spoke,
A sudden light on Marmion broke:
“Ah! dastard fool, to reason lost!”
He muttered; “’Twas nor fay nor ghost
I met upon the moonlight wold,
But living man of earthly mould.
O dotage blind and gross!
Had I but fought as wont, one thrust
Had laid De Wilton in the dust,
My path no more to cross.
How stand we now?—he told his tale
To Douglas; and with some avail;
’Twas therefore gloomed his rugged brow.
Will Surrey dare to entertain,
‘Gainst Marmion, charge disproved and vain?
Small risk of that, I trow.
Yet Clare’s sharp questions must I shun;
Must separate Constance from the nun –
Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!
A Palmer too!—no wonder why
I felt rebuked beneath his eye:
I might have known there was but one
Whose look could quell Lord Marmion.”.

Rediscovering Robert Frost - Stealth Sonnets

Digging around my poetry bookshelf I found a battered copy of "The Complete Poems of Robert Frost". How it was overlooked for so long is a mystery, it's a weighty little tome. Then again, there is a Jedi Knight mystique to poetry. When the poet is ready, the poetry form will present itself. I'm ready to tackle sonnets again.

So why didn't I grab my Shakespeare, or Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or Rossetti? Frost fills the need for sonnet exploration with a more modern twist - but not so modern the form becomes obscure. Shakespearean and Italian sonnets have become ubiquitous, appearing on posters, calendars, and Starbucks coffee mugs. It's like the old days of card catalogs in the library, when flipping through a long topic suddenly made the word you were looking up disappear through excessive familiarity. Frost is accessible, and highly readable. On one level his poetry seems simplistic, basic even. Don't let the ease of presentation fool you, lurking beneath the folksy exterior are some fairly astute observations on nature, emptiness, and relationships.

Frost's poems are deceptive in that they operate on different layers of meaning. At first read you can come away with a quick synopsis of the poem "Good fences make good neighbors" (Mending Wall). The poem is easy to get into with its plain language and clear line of thought. A more studied read through and you suddenly realize that while Frost had the line 'Good fences make good neighbors' in the poem, what he meant might well be the exact opposite. Metaphor works on many levels in a Frost poem, and is a big part of my attraction.

As for sonnets, Frost used both the Shakespearean and Petrarchan forms, although he seems to have blended and borrowed freely between them as well as adding in his own divergence to make a new twist on an old form. "The Silken Tent" is one example, where structure is seemingly abandon as Frost writes the whole sonnet in one long sentence - and it works.

The Silken Tent

by Robert Frost

She is as in a field a silken tent
At midday when the sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease,
And its supporting central cedar pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the soul,
Seems to owe naught to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To everything on earth the compass round,
And only by one's going slightly taut
In the capriciousness of summer air
Is of the slightest bondage made aware.