Today's poem by Roger McGough

Let Me Die A Youngman's Death

Let me die a youngman's death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death

When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party

Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides

Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one

Let me die a youngman's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death

Roger McGough 

and I am happy to say that he is still alive!

I first put up a Roger McGough poem ten years ago. Here is my post from then. You'll see that it was in this very month! I love things like that. I am watching the same series ten years to the month from when I first watched it, and I am watching it on Acorn TV as I was then. 

Anyhow, I think this is quite a wonderful poem. In the show a young boy recited part of it. He says about Mcgough, "He's a Scouser [from Liverpool] but he writes good poems." The boy lives in the North East of England.

When I first read the title I thought it meant he wanted to die young, but no. His website is here, and so worth reading.

I can't seem to find any definition of his use of "tumour". I thought it must be a misprint but I've found it the same word on many poetry sites. Maybe someone who is from England could explain? 

Please read Michelle Ann's comment!

Today's poem by WH Auden

I am currently watching The Last Detective on Britbox. A character called Mod played by the late Sean Hughes quoted the last two lines of this poem. It is the eighth of Auden's Twelve Songs - April 1936. 

At Last the Secret is Outby WYSTAN HUGH AUDEN

At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
The delicious story is ripe to tell to tell to the intimate friend;
Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire;
still waters run deep, my dear, there’s never smoke without fire.

Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
Under the look of fatigue the attack of migraine and the sigh
There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.

For the clear voice suddenly singing, high up in the convent wall,
The scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall,
The croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
There is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.

Today's poem by David Budbill

 This is the third poem I've posted by Vermont poet David Budbill. The others are here, and here. Both are from 2007, so you may not have even seen them! Oh, what a wonderful poet he was. 

What Is June, Anyway?

After three weeks of hot weather and drought,

we've had a week of cold and rain,

just the way it ought to be here in the north,

in June, a fire going in the woodstove

all day long, so you can go outside in the cold

and rain anytime and smell 

the wood smoke in the air.

This is the way I love it. This is why

I came here almost

fifty years ago. What is June, anyway

without cold and rain

and a fire going in the stove all day?

David Budbill 

(June 13, 1940 - September 25, 2016)

I was going to put this up on the first of June, but we were indeed having hot weather and drought. I thought I'd wait until the inevitable cold spell. Well, it is today! We had a lovely 1/2 inch of rain yesterday evening, and today it is windy and cold. Most of the weather reports are saying we won't have a frost, but the one I trust the most is over the border in Vermont, and they are saying 35-45 degrees overnight. That is too close for comfort for me! We'll cover the  Zephyr squash and a couple tomatoes that have been planted but we are holding off on planting anymore today. After tonight the temps are warmer.

It makes me so happy that Mr. Budbill moved to Vermont and loved it just as entirely as the natives of that state and my New Hampshire love it. We take the weather we get without (much) complaining. 

Point of fact, I was actually born in Vermont but lived there only four months before my folks moved over here.

Today's poem by James Russell Lowell

 

To The Dandelion 

by James Russell Lowell

(February 22, 1819-August 12, 1891)

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,
First pledge of blithesome May,
Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold,
High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they
An Eldorado in the grass have found,
Which not the rich earth's ample round
May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me
Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be.

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas,
Nor wrinkled the lean brow
Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease;
'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now
To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,
Though most hearts never understand
To take it at God's value, but pass by
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye.

Thou art my tropics and mine Italy;
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;
The eyes thou givest me
Are in the heart, and heed not space or time:
Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee
Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment
In the white lily's breezy tent,
His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,
Where, as the breezes pass,
The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,
Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue
That from the distance sparkle through
Some woodland gap, and of a sky above,
Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee;
The sight of thee calls back the robin's song,
Who, from the dark old tree
Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,
And I, secure in childish piety,
Listened as if I heard an angel sing
With news from heaven, which he could bring
Fresh every day to my untainted ears
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

How like a prodigal doth nature seem,
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!
Thou teachest me to deem
More sacredly of every human heart,
Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam
Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,
Did we but pay the love we owe,
And with a child's undoubting wisdom look
On all these living pages of God's book.

Today's poem by Ogden Nash

As I opened my Susan Branch calendar to April, this delightful poem appeared.

Praise the spells & bless

the charms,

I found April in my arms.

April golden,

April cloudy,

Gracious, cruel,

Tender, rowdy;

April soft in 

flowered languor,

April cold with

sudden anger,

Ever changing, ever true -

I love April, I love you.

"Always Marry an April Girl"

Ogden Nash (1902-1971)

Today's poem by Susan Moorhead

Back in 2016, I posted two poems by Susan Moorhead, a woman I "met" via blogging. She no longer writes her blog but it is still up so you may visit here. I have remained in touch with her via instagram. This poem is from her 2021 book.

                                                                      Common Wonders

In a dark time, when I became lost, the feelings

for everyone I had loved and for everything that once

held meaning left. Light of any kind was missing

down at the bottom amid the skeleton fish and nameless

things. I stayed lost until some lift of grace willed me 

back. When I returned, it was the smallest of things

that held my hand. The play of colors in a quilt, flavor

of a neighbor's offering of soup and bread. Green outside

the windows. The first thrashing thunderstorm, lightning

brash in the sky. The quilt wrapped around me. I felt

the rhythm of the hours, clockwork steady, as I stumbled

back from grief where time does not exist. People want

to find a lesson in everything, but what is the takeaway

of sorrow? I could say it was the resilience of my heart,

the will to rise that carried me, but no. It was the small

wonders revealed, moment after moment. Every bird flying,

each slowly whirling cloud, the scatters of light spilling

through tree branches, the hush in the yard as evening fell.

Noticing these small graces allowed the terrible rift in me

to mend. One evening, reading to my child, I heard tenderness

in my voice replace the rote dutiful tone that grief had

assigned me. I felt the ache of love return, common, wonderful.

Today's poem - An old nursery rhyme

 One For Sorrow (Two For Joy) is an old English nursery rhyme.

One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret,
Never to be told!
Eight for a wish,
Nine for a kiss,
Ten for a bird,
You must not miss.

The rhyme is referring to magpies, but I use it for "our" crows. I'll say, "one for sorrow" is here, which rarely happens. Just now there were "seven for a secret". And I got this picture out the front door window when there were "four for a boy" and one is starting to fly off.

I think I knew this rhyme before Anthony Horowitz' Magpie Murders, but maybe not. And, in case you haven't heard, it is going to be on PBS next year! 

Today's poem by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benét

On Abraham Lincoln's birthday, I thought I would post a poem I learned as a child.  I've never read anything quite like it, and though it is probably a "children's poem", I find it even more meaningful as an adult and mother. 

            Nancy Hanks 

by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benét 1933

If Nancy Hanks
Came back as a ghost,
Seeking news
Of what she loved most,
She’d ask first “Where’s my son?
What’s happened to Abe?
What’s he done?”

“Poor little Abe,
Left all alone
Except for Tom,
Who’s a rolling stone;
He was only nine
The year I died.
I remember still
How hard he cried.”

“Scraping along
In a little shack,
With hardly a shirt
To cover his back,
And a prairie wind
To blow him down,
Or pinching times
If he went to town.”

“You wouldn’t know
About my son?
Did he grow tall?
Did he have fun?
Did he learn to read?
Did he get to town?
Do you know his name?
Did he get on?”

The Duchess of Cornwall reads "My Heart's in the Highlands" on Robbie Burns' birthday.

I've been all over trying to find a video to show you here, but this is the best I can do. I so hope it will work. It is also on Facebook if you are there.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CKeso1nAvIN/

The Duchess of Cornwall reads Robert Burns' "My Heart's in the Highlands". He was born 262 years ago today.

There's a nice piece about him here. 

Tom and I drove to Cambridge, Massachusetts many years ago in a snowstorm driving a red Dodge truck to go to a "Burns' Night". It was great fun. In those days, we were big fans of Jean Redpath. She was there, as was Norman Kennedy. The host was Robert J. Lurtsema, who I wrote about on the blog here. In fact, someone commented on that post just last month!! It warmed my heart. I just reread it and saw that I had mentioned the Burns' Night, and the red truck!

Today's poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I was looking at my 2020 Susan Branch calendar and saw that the last piece of verse she noted on the December page is the last verse of this poem. It is quite fitting for our very strange and sad year. Ah, Longfellow. Always and forever one of my favorites. He puts his whole soul into his work. And I've just ordered a brand new biography of him! So excited.

This was first published in 1838. His first wife had died just a few years earlier after a miscarriage.

Here is an 1840  portrait of him done by Cephas Thompson.

A Psalm of Life

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
   Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
   And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
   And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
   Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
   Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
   Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
   And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
   Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
   In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
   Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
   Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
   Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
   We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
   Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
   Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
   With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
   Learn to labor and to wait.

Today's poem by James Hofford

 Today's poem comes from a book I have called

I thought I'd just take a picture and post it, rather than try to type it out! It is absolutely true of the way the colors are this time of year at Windy Poplars Farm, and all around us. 

Today's Poem - Hare Drummer by Edgar Lee Masters

Autumn began in my part of the world at 9:30 this morning when the sun went into Libra. I went back to my beloved 

for a poem to share. This is from Masters' Spoon River Anthology which is a collection of poems that are epitaphs of people who lived in Spoon River. You may read more about it here. It has been a very long time since I've read it or thought about it. Tom remembers he didn't like it, and I wonder if we were both too young to understand. I feel encouraged to pick it up again since I really loved this poem. I'm much closer to the age for an epitaph now! 😲

Hare Drummer

Do the boys and girls still go to Siever's

For cider, after school, in late September?

Or gather hazel nuts among the thickets

On Aaron Hatfield's farm when the frosts begin?

For many times with the laughing girls and boys

Played I along the road and over the hills

When the sun was low and the air was cool,

Stopping to club the walnut tree

Standing leafless against a flaming west.

Now, the smell of autumn smoke,

And the dropping acorns,

And the echoes about the vales

Bring dreams of life. They hover over me.

They question me:

Where are those laughing comrades?

How many are with me, how many

In the old orchards along the way to Siever's,

And in the woods that overlook

The quiet water?

Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950) 

Today's poem by Iva E. Reed

I haven't posted a poem by this woman in a lot of years. She was a friend of ours who has since died. You may find more of her poems here on the blog by going to the Poems button under the blog header picture, and then scrolling down to her name. I have been thinking of this poem for a few days as I've been seeing more crows. I know they are around in winter, but it is only in March that they begin showing themselves.

Crow in March

Heard a crow this morning!

what a great sound
when winter is still
thick and cold and white
upon the ground.

Iva Everesta Reed


I did a search and found her obituary. What a life she led!

Iva Reed

Iva Everesta Reed

Passed away in San Francisco on October 15, 2014.
Iva Everesta Reed was born December 25, 1924, one of eight children, to Adelaide Kaziah Woods and Dwight Reed, in the tiny town of Landaff, New Hampshire, in the foothills of the White Mountains. She graduated valedictorian of her high school class in Lisbon, N.H., and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Iowa with a BA in Sociology in 1948. She studied for a Master's Degree in Sociology at the University of New Hampshire.

As a young woman living in Boston, she acted in soap operas on the ABC and NBC TV networks while supporting herself as a waitress, hat checker, and part-time office worker in order to pursue her love of theatre. She played the lead in a live production of Joan of Arc in Summer Stock, Westborough, MA. In later years, she lived and worked in New York, where she became a member of the Communist Party and worked for political causes with Black activists in Harlem. She also lived for a time in Columbia, Missouri.

In 1958, she moved to San Francisco, where, in 1979, she published a book of poetry, Time Before Winter. Many of the poems in the volume express through a child's eyes Iva's love of the natural world in the White Mountains where she grew up. Many are whimsical stories about the wild animals she saw in the woods and fields she played in as a child, others a poignant search for meaning in a world of loss.

Iva is survived by her niece, Sue Malone, of Jacksonville, Florida, and by myriad other nieces and nephews scattered across the country. She will rest in peace with her parents at the Landaff Center Hill Cemetery in New Hampshire.

Published in San Francisco Chronicle on Oct. 26, 2014

Today's poem by Midge Goldberg

Busy Signal

No busy signal from his cell,
Instead I'm on "call waiting."
I can't hang up the phone and so
I'm left anticipating

Whether when he sees my name
He'll want to take the call,
And if he doesn't, am I on
His contact list at all?

Or am I still a nameless number
In this three-way hell,
Will he know it's me or think
"That doesn't ring a bell"?

And who is on the other line
He might prefer to me:
His mother, sister, college friend,
That girl on speed dial 3?

But if I choose to end it then
"missed call" gives me away.
No anonymity will hide
The things I didn't say.

Times have changed, these days there are
No hang-ups any more;
I'm strong enough, so go ahead:
Accept or else Ignore.

Midge Goldberg
from Snowman's Code

The Stolen Child by William Butler Yeats, and sung by The Waterboys

I was listening to an old album by The Waterboys, and was so taken with the last song. It is The Stolen Child by Yeats put to music by one of the members, Mike Scott, and narrated by Tomás McKeown. It is so very beautiful.

I found it on youtube in a video illustrated with pictures of old Ireland. You may watch and listen here. Addendum: I just saw that you can't watch it on the blog, but must click the watch it on youtube button. Sorry for the extra step.



The faerys [sic] are luring a child to go away with them. They present their home as a beautiful place "where flapping herons wake the drowsy water rats." This is a place of dancing and joy "while the world is full of troubles and anxious in its sleep." And that last line of each verse is a killer - "for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."  The last verse tells of the good the child will be giving up to avoid the inevitable sadness in real life.

Oh, Yeats! A wonderful poem, and I do love the musical version and narration.

The Stolen Child

WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

Today's poem by Midge Goldberg

North by Northeast

O, come to New Hampshire, my dear Cary Grant,
And pack your tuxedo designed to enchant.

We’ll dance down the aisle at the grocery store,
Buy oysters and caviar, champagne and more,

You’ll laugh and turn backflips, winning my heart;
You’ll swing us around on the grocery cart.

You’ll bow to the bag boy, tipping your hat,
Nod at the checkout girl, fix your cravat.

The limo will come, and we’ll be on our way,
“And where are we going?” you’ll smile and say.

But that is the rub, now where do we go?
To the farm, where “yar” is a yard that you’ll mow?

How are you, Cary, with chickens and chores?
I know you do rooftops, but do you do floors?

You’re the talk of the town in your glamorous scenes,
Will you trade your tuxedo for flannels and jeans?

What about wood stoves and maples to tap,
Sump pumps and snow plows and boiling the sap?

I can’t be the one who gets dirt on that sheen.
Debonair Cary, go back to your screen,

Your taxis and mansions, your princesses true.
You’re sweet but New Hampshire is no place for you.

Midge Goldberg
Snowman's Code

Today's poem by Mary Oliver

If you have read my blog for a while, you'll know that I love Mary Oliver's work. In the poems section (under the blog header photo), there are more poems by her than any other. She has meant so much to so many people. Last evening as I was going down my blog list, blogger after blogger had a piece on her. I've got many books of her poetry but on this sad occasion I knew just the book from which I wanted to choose a poem. Dog Songs.


School


You're like a little wild thing
that was never sent to school.
Sit, I say, and you jump up.
Come, I say, and you go galloping down the sand
to the nearest dead fish
with which you perfume your sweet neck.
It is summer.
How many summers does a little dog have?

Run, run, Percy.
This is our school.

Mary Oliver
1935-2019

Today's poem by Donald Hall

An Airstrip in Essex, 1960

It is a lost road into the air.

It is a desert

among sugar beets.

The tiny wings 

of the Spitfires of nineteen forty-one

sink under mud in the Channel.

Near the road a brick pillbox

totters under a load of grass,

where Home Guards waited

in the white fogs of the invasion winter.

Good night, old ruined war.

In Poland the wind rides on a jagged wall.

Smoke rises from the stones; no, it is mist.

Donald Hall

The Selected Poems of Donald Hall, 2015  

Today's poem by Emily Huntington Miller

The last verse of this poem was on December 31, 2018 (the only day from the old year) of my 2019 The Old Farmer's Almanac engagement calendar. I buy one every year and keep it beside the computer. Everything goes in there. Vet and farrier and shearing appointments, amounts of blueberries we buy, and amounts of eggs the chickens are laying. Along with family birthdays, always circled, and anything else that comes up. 

I had never heard of Emily Huntington Miller. You may read more here. 

         New Year Song

They say that the year is old and gray,
That his eyes are dim with sorrow;
But what care we, though he pass away?
For the New Year comes tomorrow.

No sighs have we for the roses fled,
No tears for the vanished summer;
Fresh flowers will spring where the old are dead,
To welcome the glad new comer.

He brings us a gift from the beautiful land
We see, in our rosy dreaming,
Where the wonderful castles of fancy stand
In magical sunshine gleaming.

Then sing, young hearts that are full of cheer,
With never a thought of sorrow;
The old goes out, but the glad young year
Comes merrily in tomorrow. 

Emily Huntington Miller
American poet
1833-1913

Today's poem by Ted Kooser

This is actually his poem from yesterday. I found it delightful.

november 18

  Cloudy, dark and windy.



Walking by flashlight
at six in the morning,
my circle of light on the gravel
swinging side to side,
coyote, raccoon, field mouse, sparrow,
each watching from darkness
this man with the moon on a leash.