Mary Oliver

[mat james]

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

take chances

[lonndubh]

Where are you?

where are you?
Do you know that the heart has a dungeon?
Bring light!Bring light!

[Diane]

meant to mention, L: I was watching The Hours with a friend lately (c/r how many times I've seen it - what a brilliant Philip Glass score, too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPeo4ZyK2X0. Pity he couldn't do something that sublime with LC).It brought this ace pome you posted to mind, I showed it her, and we have another convert. It's one of my MO top ten I reckon.

That Sweet Flute John Clare

by Mary Oliver

That sweet flute John Clare;
that broken branch Eddy Whitman;
Christopher Smart, in the press of blazing electricity;
My uncle the suicide;
Woolf, on her way to the river;
Wolf, of the sorrowful songs;
Swift, impenetrable mask of Dublin;
Schumann, climbing the bridge, leaping into the Rhine;
Ruskin, Cowper;
Poe, rambling in the gloom-bins of Baltimore and Richmond--

light of the world, hold me

[lonndubh]

Beautiful Diane.Phillip Glass -what a talanted man
I love this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjUS6JZR ... h_response

Always the years between us.
Always the years.
Always the love.
Always the hours.
Absolutely always the Love

[Diane]

thanks, L.

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone finality
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

[Diane]

and for good measure, on the topic of love, a spectacular bit of Rumi:

Everything, except love of the Most Beautiful,
is really agony.
It's agony
to move towards death and not drink the water of life.
Fiery lust is not diminished by indulging it,
but inevitably by leaving it ungratified.
I am burning.
If any one lacks tinder,
Let him set his rubbish ablaze with my fire.

- Rumi on Nafs, translated by Kabir Helminski

[lonndubh]

Fiery lust is not diminished by indulging it,
but inevitably by leaving it ungratified.
I am burning.
If any one lacks tinder,
Let him set his rubbish ablaze with my fire.

I love this Diane
But I dont agree with him at all.
Whats seldom is wonderful

[Diane]

but hang on a mo, not too seldom L:-)

OK, let's edit Rumi then:

Everything, except love of the Most Beautiful,
is really agony.
It's agony
to move towards death and not drink the water of life...
I am burning.
If any one lacks tinder,
Let him set his rubbish ablaze with my fire.

yes, that be it .

[lonndubh]

yes, that be it .

Thanks Diane
If i may I will keep the fiery lust bit for myself
Its wasted on Rumi

[Diane]

[Diane]

PS, just been listening so rounding off with The Poet Acts, from The Hours. Hauntingly sad music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJHVjD_e5eE

[lonndubh]

Come with me
into the field of sunflowers.
Their faces are burnished disks,
their dry spines

creak like ship masts,
their green leaves,
so heavy and many,
fill all day with the sticky

sugars of the sun.
Come with me
to visit the sunflowers,
they are shy

but want to be friends;
they have wonderful stories
of when they were young -
the important weather,

the wandering crows.
Don't be afraid
to ask them questions!
Their bright faces,

which follow the sun,
will listen, and all
those rows of seeds -
each one a new life!

hope for a deeper acquaintance;
each of them, though it stands
in a crowd of many,
like a separate universe,

is lonely, the long work
of turning their lives
into a celebration
is not easy. Come

and let us talk with those modest faces,
the simple garments of leaves,
the coarse roots in the earth
so uprightly burning.

[Diane]

that one's a bit reminiscent of the poppies poem I posted to start this thread nearly five years ago (!), L.

I like this, below, because I fancy myself the lost queen rushing away over the Irish sea, all doom and splendour :

(see lonndubh's post two below - I had posted an abbreviated version)
-----

I disagree that there is nothing in this world but mad love. Also, there is chocolate.

[lonndubh]

I disagree that there is nothing in this world but mad love. Also, there is chocolate

There's always Chocolate
I love all Marys summer poems -she really goes to the heart and soul of it

[lonndubh]

Here's March again


There isn’t anything in this world but mad love.

Not in this world. No tame love, calm love, mild love, no so-so love.

And, of course, no reasonable love.

Also there are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving.

But, who wants easier?

We dream of love, we moon about it, thinking of Romeo and Juliet, or Tristan, or the lost queen rushing away over the Irish sea, all doom and splendor.

Today, on the beach, an old man was sitting in the sun. I called out to him, and he turned. His face was like an empty pot.

I remember his tall, pale wife; she died long ago. I remember his daughter-in-law.

When she died, hard, and too young, he wept in the streets. He picked up pieces of wood, and stones, and anything else that was there, and threw them at the sea.

Oh, how he loved his wife. Oh, how he loved young Barbara.

I stood in front of him, not expecting any answer yet not wanting to pass without some greeting. But his face had gone back to whatever he was dreaming.

Something touched me, lightly, like a knife-blade. I felt I was bleeding, though just a little, a hint.

Inside I flared hot, then cold. I thought of you. Whom I love, madly.