When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Category Archives: Poetry
tires
tires squeal with pleasure;
driver’s hand steady and calm
on twisty long roads
Ann Boleyn
by R.P.Weston and Bert Lee, as performed by Stanley Holloway
In the Tower of London, large as life,
The ghost of Ann Boleyn walks, they declare.
Poor Ann Boleyn was once King Henry’s wife –
Until he made the Headsman bob her hair!
Ah yes! he did her wrong long years ago,
And she comes up at night to tell him so.With her head tucked underneath her arm
She walks the Bloody Tower!
With her head tucked underneath her arm
At the Midnight hour –She comes to haunt King Henry, she means giving him ‘what for’,
Gad Zooks, she’s going to tell him off for having spilt her gore.
And just in case the Headsman wants to give her an encore
She has her head tucked underneath her arm!With her head tucked underneath her arm
She walks the Bloody Tower!
With her head tucked underneath her arm
At the Midnight hour.Along the draughty corridors for miles and miles she goes,
She often catches cold, poor thing, it’s cold there when it blows,
And it’s awfully awkward for the Queen to have to blow her nose
With her head tucked underneath her arm!Sometimes gay King Henry gives a spread
For all his pals and gals – a ghostly crew.
The headsman carves the joint and cuts the bread,
Then in comes Ann Boleyn to ‘queer’ the ‘do’;
She holds her head up with a wild war whoop,
And Henry cries ‘Don’t drop it in the soup!’With her head tucked underneath her arm
She walks the Bloody Tower!
With her head tucked underneath her arm
At the Midnight hour.The sentries think that it’s a football that she carries in,
And when they’ve had a few they shout ‘Is Ars’nal going to win?’
They think it’s Alec James, instead of poor old Ann Boleyn
With her head tucked underneath her arm!With her head tucked underneath her arm
She walks the Bloody Tower!
With her head tucked underneath her arm
At the Midnight hour.One night she caught King Henry, he was in the Canteen Bar.
Said he ‘Are you Jane Seymour, Ann Boleyn or Cath’rine Parr?
For how the sweet san fairy ann do I know who you are
With your head tucked underneath your arm!’
If You Forget Me
by Pablo Neruda
I want you to know
one thing.You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine