Category Archives: poetry

listen, earth sings.

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May be an image of flower, nature and body of water
 Claude Monet’s gardens in Giverny, France
 “Spring has returned again.
The Earth is like a child
that knows poems by heart;
so many poems, so many verses,
patient toil winning her prizes at last.
Strict, the old teacher.
We loved the whiteness in the old
gentleman’s beard,
its bright snow.
Now when we ask what the green,
what the blue is,
Earth knows the answer,
has learned it.
She knows.
Earth, you’re on holiday,
lucky one: play now!
Play with us children!
We’ll try to catch you.
Glad, joyous Earth!
The gladdest must win.
Every lesson the old teacher
taught her,
all that is printed in roots
and laborious stems:
now she sings it!
Listen, Earth sings.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
“The inspiration for this sonnet came from
a visit to Ronda, in southern Spain, in the
winter of 1912-13. Rilke had overheard a
group of schoolchildren singing in the Convent
of Santo Domingo, accompanied only by a
triangle and tambourine. He didn’t know what
their song meant, but the light-hearted
animation of their singing is reflected in the
cadences of the second and third stanzas.”
on international poetry day

october slipped quietly in.

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“Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now how comfortable it will be to touch the earth instead of the nothingness of the air and the endless freshets of wind? And don’t you think the trees, especially those with mossy hollows, are beginning to look for the birds that will come – six, a dozen – to sleep inside their bodies? And don’t you hear the goldenrod whispering goodbye, the everlasting being crowned with the first tuffets of snow? The pond stiffens and the white field over which the fox runs so quickly brings out its long blue shadows. The wind wags its many tails. And in the evening the piled firewood shifts a little, longing to be on its way.”

~Mary Oliver, “Song for Autumn”

 

 

art credit: willowday flower project by gina, stockholm

at last, may.

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yes it was yesterday, i think they may have over-celebrated and lost count. 

the fairy dance

the soft stars are shining,

the moon is alight;

the folk of the forest

are dancing tonight:

o swift and gay

is the song that they sing:

they float and sway

as they dance in a ring.

o seek not to find them,

the wee folk so fair;

they’re shy as the swallow

and swift as the air:

if you come, they are gone

like a snowflake in may:

like a breath, like a sigh,

they vanish away.

 

-katherine davis (1892-1980)

 

 

 

image source: peter gray’s vintage art and postcards

noetic or poetic?

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NOETIC

no-ED-ik

Part of speech: adjective 

Origin: Greek, mid-17th century

Definition: Relating to mental activity or the intellect.

Examples in a sentence:

“The philosophy department attracts noetic students.”

“Noah was equally athletic and noetic”

Some travel life, 

Shining brightly noetic

But as for me, 

 I’d rather wax poetic. 

-beth

 

 

 

image credit: npr brightside

as poetry.

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“some of us don’t want to be tough alpha leaders.
some of us just want to write
and wander
the garden
and breathe in the sky
and nourish and nurture
and quietly create
new pathways
and live our
lives as art.
to know the earth
as poetry.”
-victoria erickson, rhythms and rhymes
in honor of national poetry month
art credit: Edgar Degas | Landscape | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

public.

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alley filled with public creative expression 

ever-evolving

ever-powerful

 

“i’m a great believer in poetry out of the classroom, in public places,

on subways, trains, on cocktail napkins.

i’d rather have my poems on the subway than around the seminar table at an mfa program.”

-billy collins

 

 

ann arbor, michigan, usa

summer 2021

 

poetic.

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last weekend

at the 44th annual ann arbor folk festival

 5 live streamed hours on saturday night

every kind of music and performance

big and small

i once again

heard beautiful poems played

by my favorite pianist

george winston

whose song ‘thanksgiving’ i heard for the very first time

many years ago on the radio while on a road trip to toronto

having no idea who it was or what the song was

 being very moved by it

not knowing if i’d ever hear it again

  serendipity stepped in

when driving back home

with a windham hill artists’ compilation cd

an unexpected gift from my host

on which he was a featured artist playing that very song.

“music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.”

-pablo casals

3am.

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3 am is the hour of writers,

painters, poets, musicians, silence seekers,

over-thinkers, and creative people.

We know who you are,

We can see your light on.

Keep on keeping on.

-author unknown

 

 

 

 

 

image credit: pinterest – vintage