posted April 24, 2015 09:11 AM            

If I could sing the song of her
Who makes my heart to sing;
If I could catch the words to match
Its secret blossoming;

My song should be a heaven of sound
Thrilled through a single note,--
The world of light that's infinite
In one flower's honey--throat!

A fountain diamonded in air,
Earth--blessing dews at night,
A dancing child, flames lovely--wild,
Should not so much delight.

But where I most have theme to boast
I stammer in my speech;
The full heart shames my faltering art
With music past its reach.

posted April 24, 2015 01:21 PM            

Stars beyond number or imagination
Silent in the sky;
Shadowy valleys and dark woods over them,
Still, without a sigh;
A house, lost in vastness and in silence,
With no house nigh;
A room apart, with not a whisper in it
As the hours steal by:
Sleeping in our star--surrounded darkness,
You and I.
~Robert Laurence Binyon

No more now with jealous complaining
Shall you be vext; nor I with fears
Torture my heart: my heart is secure now,
And laughs at follies of former tears.
No more now with the endless paining
Of idle desires shall Day distress;
Nor Night, from passionate envy pure now,
With insupportable loneliness.
Truth and Trust so sweetly possess
My fortress of peace, no more to be shaken;
From dreams of joy to joy I awaken
And wander in fields of happiness.
Foolish once, now I'll be wise,
And live in the light of your trusting eyes.
~Robert Laurence Binyon

Trees Are For Lovers

Trees are for lovers
A spirit has led them
Where the young boughs meet
And the green light hovers,
And shadowy winds blow sweet.
Trees spring to heaven!
So their hearts would spring,
So would they outpour
All the heart discovers
Of its own wild treasure
Into speech, and sing
Like the tree from its core
Sweet words beyond measure
Like leaves in the sun
Dancing every one
And weaving a fairy
Cave of quivering rays
And of shadows starry
Where those lovers, drowned
Each in the other's gaze,
Lose all time, abound
In their perfect giving;
Give and never tire
Of their fulness, still
In the fresh leaves living
One full song unsated
Of the flower Desire
And Delight the fruit;
Love, that's mated.
~Robert Laurence Binyon

posted April 26, 2015 02:23 AM            

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

posted April 26, 2015 11:11 AM            

The evening advances, then withdraws again
Leaving our cups and books like islands on the floor.
We are drifting, you and I,
As far from another as the young heroes
Of these two novels we have just laid down.
For that is happiness: to wander alone
Surrounded by the same moon, whose tides remind us of ourselves,
Our distances, and what we leave behind.
The lamp left on, the curtains letting in the light.
These things were promises. No doubt we will come back to them.
~Hugo Williams

posted May 01, 2015 10:55 AM            

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
~James Wright

This has been a favorite for years now. Captures a moment endearing and sweet.

When I was care giving for the elderly. I brought his book with me to work one day -as the woman I cared for wanted me to read for her. She had formerly worked for a publishing house when she was a young woman, she was full of good advice within the writing world, and had so many interesting stories she shared with me.

On this particular morning, I read this poem for her, my voice cracking towards the end - which is a norm for me 'emotional'... I finished reading, looked over and she was weeping. Touched which is beautiful feeling.

posted May 06, 2015 11:13 AM            

A Friendly Invitation

Come closer, poet; my soul is bare

It knows nothing of love – of earthly love,
Its love is something loftier and finer.

I will not take the kisses from your lips.
I will not drink from your crystal glass,
the glass is fragile and it loves immortality.

Come closer, poet with no trepidation…
offer up to me the grace of your hands,
In my desire you’ll find no foolish notions.

Would you like to go into the woods with a book,
a gentle book full of beauty?
We could read some pleasant passage.

I will infuse my voice with the religion of your soul,
religion of piety and of harmony
that is one with my sorrow in every way.

I will ask you to tell me of your loves
and some story which, now that years have passed,
is rich with the perfume of an old rose.

Nothing of myself will I give
for I have no perfumed flowers
that could thus be recounted.

The chest and an urn of my mad dreams
should not be opened, ending their lethargy
to show you their bitter contents.

I will do everything for your joy
and will be as sweet to you
as the perfume of the old rose.

The invitation is… sincere and noble.
Would you be my poet, good friend
and share your pain alone with me?

~Alfonsina Storni

posted May 07, 2015 06:59 PM            

O My love is like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O My love is like a melody
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie luv,
So deep in love am I;
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till all the seas gone dry.

Till all the seas gone dry, my luv,
And the rocks melt with the sun;
O I will love thee still my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

So fare-thee-weel, my bonnie luv!
And fare-thee-weel awhile!
O I will come again, my luv,
Though it were ten thousand mile!

posted May 14, 2015 08:14 AM            

"Leo Marks's poem "The Life That I Have," read as part of Chelsea Clinton and Mark Mezvinsky wedding ceremony, seems on the surface to be the perfect wedding poem. It's straightforward and employs simple language--easy for the guests to understand and appreciate with one listen--and it comes across as genuinely emotional with its incantatory and almost pleading repetition of "yours and yours and yours." Here's the full text of the poem:

The life that I have Is all that I have
And the life that I have 
Is yours
The love that I have 

Of the life that I have 

Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have 

A rest I shall have 

Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years 

In the long green grass 

Will be yours and yours 

And yours.

The emotion behind the poem, it turns out, was genuine and intense. Marks wrote it on Christmas Eve in 1943 for his girlfriend Ruth, who had just died in a plane crash. In his 1998 memoir "Between Silk and Cyanide," Marks wrote of the poem's purpose, "I transmitted a message to her which I'd failed to deliver when I'd had the chance."

That's heartbreaking enough, but there was more tragedy to come. When Marks wrote the poem, he was serving as chief code breaker/cryptographer for Winston Churchill's famed Special Operations Executive, the group tasked with encoding allied messages and cracking German codes. A mathematical genius, Marks reportedly cracked Charles de Gaulle's personal cipher during a spare moment on the toilet.

When Marks joined the Special Operations Executive, it was common practice to use well-known poems as the ciphers for encoding messages. Marks found this appalling, as any Nazi with a book of British classics could crack the ciphers, so he took to using his original poems instead.

"The Life That I Have," Richard Hyfler noted in an article for Forbes Magazine, turned out to be an ideal poem to use as a cipher, with its "absence of the high-value Scrabble letters like 'z' and 'x' or words with double letters that make code easier to decipher." Marks eventually gave it to a beautiful, young agent with the French resistance named Violette Szabo to use as her personal code. Before the end of the war, Szabo was compromised then tortured and killed by the Nazis. Her travails, along with the poem, are remembered in a 1958 film called Carve Her Name With Pride. You can watch a scene from the movie below.

posted May 19, 2015 09:51 AM            

Your words dropped into my heart like pebbles into a pool,
Rippling around my breast and leaving it melting cool.

Your kisses fell sharp on my flesh like dawn-dews from the limb,
Or a fruit-filled lemon tree when the day is young and dim.

Like soft rain-christened sunshine, as fragile as rare gold lace,
Your breath, sweet-scented and warm, has kindled my tranquil face.

But a silence vasty-deep, oh deeper than all these ties
Now, through the menacing miles, brooding between us lies.

And more than the songs I sing, I await your written word,
To stir my fluent blood as never your presence stirred.
~Claude McKay

posted July 21, 2015 10:51 AM            

Because you exist I see it better, though the same as before.
Because you love me I love it in the same way, but more.
Because you chose me to have you and love you
My eyes gaze at it
More than at anything.

posted September 01, 2015 10:25 AM            

Is it worth the learning,
This love they praise?
Pale lovers yearning
For happy days,
For happy days and happier nights,
For waking dreams of dear delights?
Is it worth the learning?

My heart is burning,
It scorches me;
Is it worth the learning?
What this may be?
Why do I walk alone all day?
" She is in love, " the maidens say.
Is love worth learning?

Was it worth the learning?
He kissed my hand.
Is love worth learning?
I understand,
Though love may come and love may go,
It is the only thing to know:
Love's worth the learning.
~John Davidson

posted September 23, 2015 11:25 PM            

You live always in your acts.
With the tips of your fingers
you touch the world lightly, and draw
from it dawns, triumphs, colors
joys: it is your music.
Life is what you touch.

From your eyes, only from them,
springs the light that guides
your footsteps. You walk
Only by what you see. Nothing else.

And if a doubt assails you, and
beckons from ten thousand miles,
you drop everything, you rush
onto prows, upon wings,
you are already there; with kisses,
with your teeth you rip it out:
it is no longer a doubt.
You can never doubt.

Because you turned mysteries
inside out. And your enigmas
(what you’ll never understand)
are those things which are so clear:
the sand where you lie down,
the ticking of your watch
and the tender pink body
that you meet in the mirror
every day when you awake,
and it’s yours. Prodigies, marvels
that are already deciphered.

posted October 21, 2015 10:26 AM            

The sweetest notes among the human heart-strings
Are dull with rust;
The sweetest chords, adjusted by the angels,
Are clogged with dust;
We pipe and pipe again our dreary music
Upon the self-same strains,
While sounds of crime, and fear, and desolation,
Come back in sad refrains.

On through the world we go, an army marching
With listening ears,
Each longing, sighing, for the heavenly music
He never hears;
Each longing, sighing, for a word of comfort,
A word of tender praise,
A word of love, to cheer the endless journey
Of earth's hard, busy days.

They love us, and we know it; this suffices
For reason's share.
Why should they pause to give that love expression
With gentle care?
Why should they pause? But still our hearts are aching
With all the gnawing pain
Of hungry love that longs to hear the music,
And longs and longs in vain.

We love them, and they know it; if we falter,
With fingers numb,
Among the unused strings of love's expression,
The notes are dumb.
We shrink within ourselves in voiceless sorrow,
Leaving the words unsaid,
And, side by side with those we love the dearest,
In silence on we tread.
Thus on we tread, and thus each heart in silence
Its fate fulfils,
Waiting and hoping for the heavenly music
Beyond the distant hills.