Two Poems in honor of stalagmites in my bird bath (Here in south Mississippi we had a morning with a temperature of 14°!):
"Welcome to the New Year"
by Eleanor Farjeon Hey, my lad, ho, my lad!
Here’s a New Broom.
Heaven’s your housetop
And Earth is your room.
Tuck up your shirtsleeves,
There’s plenty to do-
Look at the muddle
That’s waiting for you!
Dust in the corners
And dirt on the floor,
Cobwebs still clinging
To window and door.
Hey, my lad! ho, my lad!
Nimble and keen -
Here’s your New Broom, my lad!
See you sweep clean.
from All the Silver Pennies
edited by Blanch Jennings Thompson"Fire and Ice"
by Robert Frost Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
from the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry
edited by Richard Ellmann and Robert O’ClairEleanor Farjeon an English author was a friend of Robert Frost whose summer home near Middlebury, Vermont was vandalized December 28, 2007. The Associated Press reported that many items were damaged or burned by vandals who apparently broke into the home for a drinking party. Frost summered at the home from 1939 until his death in 1963. Thankfully, the cabin located on the property where Frost wrote was not damaged.
The phrase “a new broom sweeps clean” was used quite frequently by my mother to encourage me to begin anew - appropriate for a new year. Farjeon’s poem certainly infers this. Frost’s words were somewhat prophetic. Hate almost destroyed his home on a cold winter’s night.
In my book . . . Our world needs a new broom.
Again - Poetry Friday on MondayAutumn at last. September 23 marked the autumnal equinox - fun words to say! And words that give hope for a cooler temperature in south Mississippi!
Using my favorite reference book, the dictionary, I find that autumn means a period of maturity. Maturity means a state of ripeness, and ripeness means fully prepared to something. So . . . Those of us who can be described as mature in age are just now fully prepared to do something - maybe something great!
In honor of Autumn:
Gathering Leaves
by Robert Frost
Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons.
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace.
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed.
And what have I then?
Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth.
Next to nothing for color.
Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who's to say where
The harvest shall stop?
One of my favorite uses of the word leaf is in the phrase turn over a new leaf -to start anew.
So
In my book . . . It is never to late to live. "And who's to say where the harvest shall stop?" Autumn can mean life joy!
Trees seem to be on my mind this week. My favorite trees are the willow and the dogwood, neither of which can I keep alive! In fact I have discovered that my treasured elderly dogwood is dying. Poet Robert Frost wrote about many things in nature including trees.
Some lines from Frost’s
“Birches” When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
. . .
He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
. . .
I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
. . .
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
Frost said about poetry: “Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another.”
In my book . . . A swing in or on or around a tree is a fine thing. Swing away!
Quote and Poem from:
The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry
Edited by Richard Ellmann and Robert O’Clair
