Day 30 - Fly Me to the Moon - by Bart Howard

This is the last day of the 30-Day Poetry Challenge.  It's been so much fun (and educational) that I thought I would do something completely different for the last day.  This is one of my favourite songs.  I'm currently trying to learn how to play it on piano.

Bart Howard (1915 - 2004), born Howard Joseph Gustafson, is probably a name that many people don't know.  He wrote this song (and I'm considering this a poem set to music ;) and called it "In Other Words" but the publisher had to change the title after it became so popularly known as Fly Me to the Moon. The song is probably more remembered by the singers who performed it - like Peggy Lee, Diana Krall, Ella Fitzgerald, and of course Frank Sinatra.

Here is my 'spoken' version of this poem/song - with a little flair for just fun:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/fly-me-to-the-moon

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Fly Me to the Moon - by Bart Howard

Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On a Jupiter and Mars

In other words, hold my hand
In other words, baby , kiss me

Fill my heart with song
and let me sing forever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore

In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you

Fill my heart with song
Let me sing forever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore

In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you
In other words, I love you.

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Of course, no one can do this like Frank Sinatra.  Here is his absolutely lovely version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQR0bXO_yI8

If you want to learn this on piano as well, here is a GREAT tutorial on how to play it!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zCkzYkNNoo

Day 29 - The Awakening - by Rumi

I love love love Rumi's poetry. Everytime I read it - his writings and his poems, posted on the internet or in books - I get a chill or spill a tear or feel enveloped with some glimmer of a deeper understanding. This man, born in Persia in 1207 AD in what would today be Afganistan, this man understood life, he understood something greater than life, he understood some deep mysterious spiritual connection.

When Rumi was 18, he and his family migrated west due to the mongol invasion. On this journey, he met Attar, one of the most renowned poets of the time. This quote is from Wikipedia:

"Rumi encountered one of the most famous mystic Persian poets, Attar, in the Iranian city of Nishapur, located in the province of Khorāsān. Attar immediately recognized Rumi's spiritual eminence. He saw the father walking ahead of the son and said, "Here comes a sea followed by an ocean." He gave the boy his Asrārnāma, a book about the entanglement of the soul in the material world. This meeting had a deep impact on the eighteen-year-old Rumi and later on became the inspiration for his works."

Rumi passed through Bagdad, made a pilgrimage to Mecca, and finally settled in Turkey. Rumi is buried in Konya, Turkey, where I visited his mausoleum at the Mevlana Musem in 2004.

Here is my spoken version of this poem:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/the-awakening

THE AWAKENING

In the early dawn of happiness
you gave me three kisses
so that I would wake up
to this moment of love

I tried to remember in my heart
what I’d dreamt about
during the night
before I became aware
of this moving
of life

I found my dreams
but the moon took me away
It lifted me up to the firmament
and suspended me there
I saw how my heart had fallen
on your path
singing a song

Between my love and my heart
things were happening which
slowly slowly
made me recall everything

You amuse me with your touch
although I can’t see your hands.
You have kissed me with tenderness
although I haven’t seen your lips
You are hidden from me.

But it is you who keeps me alive

Perhaps the time will come
when you will tire of kisses
I shall be happy
even for insults from you
I only ask that you
keep some attention on me.

- Rumi

Day 28 - Long Yearning - by Li Bai

I thought I would try a Chinese Poet today. I'm learning Chinese Characters, and have been practicing by trying to recognize these characters in writings on the internet.

Li Bai is a very famous poet. He lived in the 'Golden Age of China' from 701 AD - 762 AD. He was known as one of the Three Wonders (the other two being Pei Min's swordplay and Zhang Xu's calligraphy). Li Bai wrote a thousand poems during the Tang Dynasty, mostly about his friendships, the places he visited, and wine. He began writing poetry before he was ten, which is oddly pleasing to me since that is the age I began writing my own poetry.

It is rumoured that Li Bai died falling out of a boat, maybe after filling his wine cup.  He was so enamored by the reflection of the moon in the Yangtse River than he tried to embrace it.

感之欲嘆息,   Moved by its song I soon began to sigh,
對酒還自傾.   and, as wine was there, I filled my own cup.
浩歌待明月,   Wildly singing I waited for the moon to rise;
曲盡已忘情.   when my song was over, all my senses had gone.

Here are the original Chinese characters of this poem (I think it is anyway). I would love to transcribe this myself, since there are many different translations and interpretations.  In Chinese, the essence of the poem would be retained.  I recognize 'moon' and 'person' and 'sky or heaven'.

长相思，在长安。

络纬秋啼金井阑，
微霜凄凄簟色寒。

孤灯不明思欲绝，
卷帷望月空长叹。

美人如花隔云端，
上有青冥之高天，
下有渌水之波澜。

天长地远魂飞苦，
梦魂不到关山难。
长相思，摧心肝。

Here is my spoken version of this poem:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/long-yearning

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Long Yearning - by Li Bai

Long yearning,
To be in Chang'an.
The grasshoppers weave their autumn song by the golden railing of the well;
Frost coalesces on my bamboo mat, changing its colour with cold.
My lonely lamp is not bright, I’d like to end these thoughts;
I roll back the hanging, gaze at the moon, and long sigh in vain.
The beautiful person's like a flower beyond the edge of the clouds.
Above is the black night of heaven's height;
Below is the green water billowing on.
The sky is long, the road is far, bitter flies my spirit;
The spirit I dream can't get through, the mountain pass is hard.
Long yearning,
Breaks my heart.

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Day 27 - Crossing the Water - by Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath is known for her autobiographical novel 'The Bell Jar' which I haven't read, but her poetry moves me with her extraordinary use of words that illicit such emotion and imagery. She was born in 1932 in America, but moved to the UK. Her poetry is so full of darkness and sometimes odd dazzling light which must have stemmed from her lifelong bouts of deep depression. Her creativity could not save her from the spiraling darkness.

Although she had two young children at home with her, she closed off the kitchen door, dampened and tucked a towel under the doorway, then turned on the oven and rested her head in it until she succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning.

She won a Pulitzer Prize after her death for The Collected Poems.

Here is my spoken version of this poem:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/crossing-the-water

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Crossing the Water - by Sylvia Plath

Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people.
Where do the black trees go that drink here?
Their shadows must cover Canada.

A little light is filtering from the water flowers.
Their leaves do not wish us to hurry:
They are round and flat and full of dark advice.

Cold worlds shake from the oar.
The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes.
A snag is lifting a valedictory, pale hand;

Stars open among the lilies.
Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?
This is the silence of astounded souls.

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Day 26 - Affection - by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, a great grandniece of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was also friends with Robert Browning, and Lord Tennyson. She wrote hundreds of poems, and various novels and essays, some of which are still unpublished. Mary was born Sep 23, 1861 in London, UK, and taught college literature classes for twelve years. She traveled extensively, but succumbed to an appendicitis in 1907. Her students were so distraught, they refused to accept another teacher and disbanded. She must have been an outstanding teacher and person.

She wrote her first poem when she was thirteen.

Mary appeals to me for two reasons: she published her poems under a pseudonym (Anodos) and she enjoyed 'being in love with the moment', which seems so contradictory. A free spirit limited by social pressure. She didn't want to embarrass her family with her poetry.

Here is my spoken version of this poem:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/affection

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The Affection

The earth that made the rose,
She also is thy mother, and not I.
The flame wherewith thy maiden spirit glows
Was lighted at no hearth that I sit by.
I am as far below as heaven above thee.
Were I thine angel, more I could not love thee.

Bid me defend thee!
Thy danger over-human strength shall lend me,
A hand of iron and a heart of steel,
To strike, to wound, to slay, and not to feel.
But if you chide me,
I am a weak, defenceless child beside thee.

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Day 25 - Fairy Song - by Louisa May Alcott

What a whimsical poem this is. In reading it, you can just imagine Louisa May Alcott as a wild tumultuous child filling her own imagination with fairies and elves, flowers and feasts, dreams and starlit skies. She wrote poetry from the age of seven as an escape from poverty and her father's strict discipline and later the civil war where she was a nurse. She never married. Perhaps she was too much in love with writing. She is most famous for the book 'Little Women'.

Here is my spoken version of this poem:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/fairy-song

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Fairy Song - by Louisa May Alcott

The moonlight fades from flower and rose
And the stars dim one by one;
The tale is told, the song is sung,
And the Fairy feast is done.
The night-wind rocks the sleeping flowers,
And sings to them, soft and low.
The early birds erelong will wake:
'T is time for the Elves to go.

O'er the sleeping earth we silently pass,
Unseen by mortal eye,
And send sweet dreams, as we lightly float
Through the quiet moonlit sky;--
For the stars' soft eyes alone may see,
And the flowers alone may know,
The feasts we hold, the tales we tell;
So't is time for the Elves to go.

From bird, and blossom, and bee,
We learn the lessons they teach;
And seek, by kindly deeds, to win
A loving friend in each.
And though unseen on earth we dwell,
Sweet voices whisper low,
And gentle hearts most joyously greet
The Elves where'er they go.

When next we meet in the Fairy dell,
May the silver moon's soft light
Shine then on faces gay as now,
And Elfin hearts as light.
Now spread each wing, for the eastern sky
With sunlight soon shall glow.
The morning star shall light us home:
Farewell! for the Elves must go.

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Day 24 - O Captain! My Captain! - by Walt Whitman

I was first introduced to this poem by Robin Williams character in "Dead Poet's Society". The film depicts how one person can make such a huge inspirational change in your life, in your character, in your future self - both for me in watching it, and in the students in the movie. This is what education should strive for, the springing up of thoughts and ideas much greater than you can ever imagine yourself to be.

Did Walt Whitman ever conceive that this poem would break into the masses in such a passionate way?

I had no idea the poem was written about Abraham Lincoln's assassination until I did this poetry challenge. Walt wrote many poems about the civil war. But I am most inspired, not by Walt Whitman's words and rhyming, but the emotion it spawned upon Robin Williams' death. This is my tribute to the man who brought so much joy to people. Rest in Peace, my Captain.

Here is my spoken version of this poem:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/o-captain-my-captain

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O Captain! My Captain! - By Walt Whitman

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
                         But O heart! heart! heart!
                            O the bleeding drops of red,
                               Where on the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
                         Here Captain! dear father!
                            This arm beneath your head!
                               It is some dream that on the deck,
                                 You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
                            But I with mournful tread,
                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.

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Day 23 - The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I love this poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.  I wish everyone thought this way. We should replace small talk with deep talk, profound talk.  That's the only way we really can get to know each other.


Here is my spoken version of this poem:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/the-invitation

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The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.
It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.

I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

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Here is Oriah Mountain Dreamer's website where you can read her blog or buy her books or read her other poetry.

http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com/

Day 22 - Antique by Robert Pinsky

Faded photographs.  We keep these as memories.  When no one is left to remember you, what then?  A discarded photograph in an antique frame, a face lost in a second hand store of trinkets.  What is of value then, the frame?  How easily we can become forgotten.

Robert Pinsky (1940 - ) won't be forgotten.  His legacy will live on forever in his poems and prose and plays.  If you didn't know what Robert Pinsky looked like...if you found his photograph in a frame at a stall, and really liked the frame, would it matter how famous he was?  Would the person looking at his picture know that he wrote poems, that he loved jazz, that he played the saxiphone, that he won numerous awards? Funny, how all that is lost in a single discarded photograph.

Here is my spoken version of this poem:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/antique

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Antique - by Robert Pinsky

I drowned in the fire of having you, I burned
In the river of not having you, we lived
Together for hours in a house of a thousand rooms
And we were parted for a thousand years.
Ten minutes ago we raised our children who cover
The earth and have forgotten that we existed.
It was not maya, it was not a ladder to perfection,
It was this cold sunlight falling on this warm earth.

When I turned you went to Hell. When your ship
Fled the battle I followed you and lost the world
Without regret but with stormy recriminations.
Someday far down that corridor of horror the future
Someone who buys this picture of you for the frame
At a stall in a dwindled city will study your face
And decide to harbor it for a little while longer
From the waters of anonymity, the acids of breath.

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I thought it might be interesting to hear Robert Pinsky himself speaking this poem with a background of his favourite music Jazz:

http://www.bu.edu/today/2010/speaking-jazz/

Here is more from Robert Pinsky:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_w3XpNOTGw

Day 21 - The Bacchae - by Euripides

Gods win every time, don't they?  Our myths and legends and even religions retell this common theme.  Gods are vengeful, powerful, and demand worship - at least the Greek gods do.  I'm reading The Bacchae for part of a Greek Mythology course where Dionysus exacts his sweet and wicked revenge on Pentheus and Thebes.  We fall, humble, before these powerful deities.

Yet, I wonder if the ritual of Dionysus is carried forward in the Druid rituals for fertility, or other Pagan rituals steeped in mysticism and mystery.  What purpose is this gluttony of rage and wrath and lust and libations? Like falling off a diet for a day, then getting back on track, a release of pent up stress?  Was the purpose simply to blow off steam?

My poem today is an excerpt from The Bacchae.
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/the-bacchae 

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The Bacchae - by Euripides (excerpt from Chorus, The Maidens:)

Will they ever come to me, ever again,
The long long dances,
On through the dark till the dim stars wane?
Shall I feel the dew on my throat, and the stream
Of wind in my hair? Shall our white feet gleam
In the dim expanses?
Oh, feet of a fawn to the greenwood fled,
Alone in the grass and the loveliness;
Leap of the hunted, no more in dread,
Beyond the snares and the deadly press:
Yet a voice still in the distance sounds,
A voice and a fear and a haste of hounds;
O wildly labouring, fiercely fleet,
Onward yet by river and glen …
Is it joy or terror, ye storm-swift feet? …
To the dear lone lands untroubled of men,
Where no voice sounds, and amid the shadowy green
The little things of the woodland live unseen.
What else is Wisdom? What of man’s endeavour
Or God’s high grace, so lovely and so great?
To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait;
To hold a hand uplifted over Hate;
And shall not Loveliness be loved for ever?

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The whole poem is worth reading, you can find many versions but this is the one I used:
http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/euripides/Euripides-Bacchae.pdf

Day 20 - She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep - by Robert Graves

I just finished reading Oedipus by Sophocles for a Greek Mythology course that I'm taking.  I have known the story forever, but had never actually read it.  I love old Greek myths and stories.  One of my favourite epic poems is the Iliad by Homer.

I stumbled upon Robert Graves (1895 - 1985) while browsing for a poem this morning and was surprised to learn that he also had a passion for ancient Greek texts.  In fact, he translated them, along with old Latin texts as well. Graves almost died three times, once from double pneumonia and measles when he was 7, later during World War I from a critical wound in his lung, and then from Spanish Flu in 1918.  Despite these, he lived a long life and produced many works. He wrote war poetry during the war, and new translations of Greek myths which created controversy, and historical novels.  He sounds like a fascinating person.

Here is my spoken version of this poem:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/she-tells-her-love-while-half-asleep

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She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep - by Robert Graves

She tells her love while half asleep,
       In the dark hours,
               With half-words whispered low:
As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
       And puts out grass and flowers
                Despite the snow,
                Despite the falling snow.

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While reading this poem, I can vividly see the gently falling snow landing softly on just budding spring flowers.  It's very evocative.

Day 19 - Carving - by Imtiaz Dharker

The hazy orange sunrise this morning cast a surreal glow to everything - the yellow bells, the orange day lillies, the red geraniums - all seemed infused with some deeper richer resonance.  Hazy smoke cast wide across the sky, a soft blanket to the heat of summer's day.  It seemed to call for silence, insulation - for curling up with an exotic engulfing book that would carry me off to distant lands.  Like Pakistan maybe, a place I've never been.  Or Scotland.

Imtiaz Dharker was born in Pakistan but grew up in Glasgow, Scotland.  She is an artist, film-maker, author and poet.  I found her poem on the '50 Greatest Modern Love Poems' list.

Here is my spoken version of this poem.
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/carving

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Carving - by Imtiaz Dharker

Others can carve out
their space
in tombs and pyramids.
Our time cannot be trapped
in cages.
Nor hope, nor laughter.
We let the moment rise
like birds and planes and angels
to the sky.
Eternity is this.
Your breath on the window-pane,
living walls with shining eyes.
The surprise of spires,
uncompromising verticals. Knowing
we have been spared
to lift our faces up
for one more day,
into one more sunrise.
Imtiaz Dharker

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Day 18 - Should You Die First - by Annabelle Despard

Funny how differently people handle death.  Some discard everything the person owns, like getting rid of everything will help ease the remembering of them.  Others keep everything exactly as it was the moment they heard of the death, years blanketing the room and artifacts with insulating cobwebs. I remember watching a movie where a Mom who lost her son never washed his clothes, and when someone inadvertently did so, she completely had a melt down.  She had lost his smells, the last lingering fragrance of his essence that remained on earth.

I sometimes wonder where poets get their inspiration.  Did Annabelle Despard (1943 - ) watch this same movie?  Did she experience some deep traumatic loss of a loved one? Or was she writing this for someone who was dying?

Here is my spoken version of this poem:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/shouldyoudiefirst

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Should You Die First - by Annabelle Despard

Let me at least collect your smells
as specimens: your armpits, woollen
sweater,
fingers yellow from smoke. I’d need
to take an imprint of your foot
and make recordings of your laugh.
These archives I shall carry into exile;
my body a St Helena where ships no
longer dock,
a rock in the ocean, an outpost where the
wind howls
and polar bears beat down the door.

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Day 17 - All You Who Sleep Tonight - by Vikram Seth

I often can't sleep on Monday nights.  It's not that I do anything different on this day. Sometimes, I wish for sleep but after hours of restlessness, I arise and log on to my computer to work on my hobbies. Or search for ways to sleep like 'all you who sleep tonight' are doing.  In the quiet still hours of the night, I know I am not alone.

Vikram Seth (1952 - ) was born in Kolkata (Calcutta).  I remember vividly a sleepness night there listening to traffic and early morning roosters, anxious to visit the Howrah Bridge where everything happens.  India is so vibrant, so full of life and living and yet so full of dying and death, right there in front of you.  Images float across the mind long after the day is finished.  It is easy to feel alone in this stillness, this blackness, this emptiness of night. But you are not alone.

Here is my spoken version of this poem.
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/all-you-who-sleep-tonight

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All You Who Sleep Tonight - by Vikram Seth

All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hand to left or right
And emptiness above -

Know that you aren't alone
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all their years.

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Here is a very cute video of a very young boy reciting this poem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO631Wy0ye4&index=24&list=PLFTiLzoRrPMcHCKW1UGZ9zwKlrp71gzDV

Day 16 - He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven - by William Butler Yeats

Today is my friend's birthday, and I haven't called her for over a year.  We've known each other for so long that I sometimes believe she can hear the unspoken words in my head, wishing her well, wishing her a Happy Birthday.   It's not that I don't want to talk to her, she's been my friend forever and people used to think we were sisters.  I love hearing what's new in her life.  But it's so much easier not talking.  Wouldn't it be nice, if like magic, we could just send thoughts to each other?

William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939) was interested in the occult, magic, Hinduism, and astrology.  Without those, he is quoted as saying, he wouldn't be able to write. It inspired him. His "Ghost Club" researched paranormal activities, he attended seances, and he joined the Golden Dawn order.  His muse for many of his poems rejected five (?) marriage proposals from him, eventually marrying someone else.  How disturbing for him.

I guess his magic didn't work.  But I hope mine does, I hope my friend hears the unspoken words for her.

Here is my spoken version of this poem:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/he-wishes-for-the-cloths-of-heaven-by-william-butler-yeats

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He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by William Butler Yeats

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

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Here is Anthony Hopkins reading of this poem, from the film "84 Charing Cross Road", I really like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUhNa-NkGOg

Day 15 - A Red, Red Rose - by Robert Burns

I guess I better pick one of Robbie Burns' poems. He was my Dad's favourite poet. My Dad would recite his poetry 'Address to the Haggis' and 'Toast to the Ladies' at the annual Robbie Burn's Day dinners that his community used to celebrate. He even made haggis for a few of them. I wish I could recite this poem with a Scottish accent, that would be so cool. Our family is Scottish, or at least that's what my Dad believes even though his brother thinks we are Irish.

Robbie Burns (1759-1796) was voted the greatest Scot in 2009 by the Scottish people. If you don't know who Robbie Burns is, you have never heard or sung the song Auld Lang Syne.  Burns was quite the ladies man, having many affairs and many children, twelve of which survived.  He died at the age of 37.

Here is my spoken version of this poem:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/redredrose
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A Red, Red Rose - by Robert Burns

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my Luve’s like the melodie,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
And fare-thee-weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ ’twere ten thousand mile!

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Day 14 - A Love Song - by William Carlos Williams

When people become discouraged about what they want to do in life, especially when they are entering their middle years or feel they are past their prime, I always remind them of my favourite story of Dr Albert Schweitzer.

Dr Schweitzer is famous because at the age of 77 he won a Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work in Africa.  People tend to think this is because he spent his whole life being a doctor, establishing a hospital in rural Gabon and devoting his life to healing.  This is true.  But what most people don't know is that before he was a doctor, he was a famous pianist who performed concerts in Europe.  At the age of 30, feeling a need for change, he enrolled in University to obtain a medical degree.  Yes, at what  most people would consider too old to establish a new career, he challenged that and established what would become his legacy.

It just goes to show, you are never too old - for anything.  (Go, do it!)

Like today's poet, who was also a medical doctor.  William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963) had a passion for poetry and prose.  He felt he was overshadowed by other contemporary poets, but I think this poem is really magical.

Here is my spoken version of it:
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/a-love-song-by-william-carlos-williams

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A Love Song - by William Carlos Williams

What have I to say to you
When we shall meet?
Yet—
I lie here thinking of you.

The stain of love
Is upon the world.
Yellow, yellow, yellow,
It eats into the leaves,
Smears with saffron
The horned branches that lean
Heavily
Against a smooth purple sky.

There is no light—
Only a honey-thick stain
That drips from leaf to leaf
And limb to limb
Spoiling the colours
Of the whole world.

I am alone.
The weight of love
Has buoyed me up
Till my head
Knocks against the sky.

See me!
My hair is dripping with nectar—
Starlings carry it
On their black wings.
See, at last
My arms and my hands
Are lying idle.

How can I tell
If I shall ever love you again
As I do now?

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Listen again.  Can you hear the message?  I have no other goodies for you today.