Friday, December 7, 2007
Poetry corner: the end
Posted by Harold Henderson on Fri, Dec 7, 2007 at 10:04 AM
On my last day blogging under these auspices (now you can find me here), I yield the floor to fellow Kentuckian Wendell Berry, from The Country of Marriage (buy it, you won't be sorry). Years ago, this one resided on the wall of our downstate outhouse, which looked out on just such a tree:
THE OLD ELM TREE BY THE RIVER
Shrugging in the flight of its leaves,it is dying. Death is slowly
standing up in its trunk and branches
like a camouflaged hunter. In the night
I am wakened by one of its branches
crashing down, heavy as a wall, and then
lie sleepless, the world changed.
That is a life I know the country by.
Mine is a life I know the country by.
Willing to live and die, we stand here,
timely and at home, neighborly as two men.
Our place is changing in us as we stand,
and we hold up the weight that will bring us down.
In us the land enacts its history.
When we stood it was beneath us, and was
the strength by which we held to it
and stood, the daylight over it
a mighty blessing we cannot bear for long.
Showing 1-12 of 12
I'll miss your Chicago Reader blog, Harold, with all the cool links and interesting ideas. And I'll continue to read you at blogspot!
HH, Your change of circumstances really, really, REALLY pisses me off. See you over at Blogspot.
CU HH, I like the Django interface here at the Reader (it also keeps spam away better than Blogspot). JBP
Breaths and beautiful sounds. In the amazing song of a little blackbird chanting alone in a beautiful dream I hear glimmers of magical quietness, the love for the dark and a tender idea recalling the silence. http://www.casafree.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=26382&forum=10
I'll really miss your mind. Keep up the good work.
The Reader is dead. Long live the Reader! But Hark! the Harold sings on blogspot.
Wendell Barry's work is indeeed wonderful stuff. His thoughts on agriculture, rural society, and the role those two things play in the world are immensely interesting. Good call on mentioning him here. That made me happy.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun, Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o’er-brimmed their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too – While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue: Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. I am sure it is of little solace, but it is one of my favorites (To Autumn by Keats). I hope you are happy at your new home, and I wish you all the best.
At the Mercy. In the resonant cypress situated, like a trembling leaf, in the breath of a novel and innocent morning, a sparrow alights and always, in the sun’s redness, a delicate flake discovers a dream.
The inner part. The inner light and the beautiful and tender narrator invent a mutable moment, when Christmas arrives; I see a blackbird singing the birth of an ancient era, the time of my life, the care and the reason. Francesco Sinibaldi
Arbours coloured by a soft September breeze delay in the sunshine of a beautiful morning, and a loving profile presents, in a moment, the taste of a dream. Francesco Sinibaldi
Prudence and the melody. Arbours coloured by a soft September breeze delay in the sunshine of a beautiful morning, and a loving profile presents, in a moment, the taste of a dream. Francesco Sinibaldi
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