My Favorite Poem
Do not go gentle into that good night
Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
My favorite poet, however, is Pablo Neruda.
He wrote his odes in Spanish, and this wonderful book has both the Spanish and English versions. This was my birthday present when I turned fourteen, and I loved it. Still love it, actually. The poems are amazing and thought-provoking and have very little in the way of rhyme scheme which is good because rhyming through a whole poem is boring.
My Favorite Ode
Ode to My Socks
Pablo Neruda
Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
as if they were two cases
knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin,
Violent socks,
my feet were two fish made of wool,
two long sharks
sea blue, shot through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet were honored in this way
by these heavenly socks.
They were so handsome for the first time
my feet seemed to me unacceptable
like two decrepit firemen,
firemen unworthy of that woven fire,
of those glowing socks.
Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men collect
sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them
in a golden cage and each day give them
birdseed and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers in the jungle
who hand over the very rare green deer
to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stretched out my feet and pulled on
the magnificent socks and then my shoes.
The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.
And so, I ask you: what is your favorite poem and your favorite poet? Is your favorite poem written by your favorite poet? Do you write poetry? Is there a poem of your own you would like to share?
Here is my most recent poem:
The Land of Waterfalls
Water crashing, falling
Tumbling over the rocky shelf
The water is brown, the deep brown of
Too much tree sap over too long a distance.
The sound is of the constant impacts of
Water against water.
Birds fly, their calls mixing with the water’s crashing.
There is a bite to the air, slight, small.
The water has it too, more intense, noticeable.
Water fills my ears with joy,
I hear the sounds of a million faeries’ songs
The water rushes, almost too cold to bear over my toes,
Turning them the beautiful amber of maple syrup
The water flows around me, I break the current
Water falls off of rock, splashing, creating little dips,
Small sounds that combine, build to fill my mind
Birds fly, calling to each other, words milling with the water
A song no one else can hear, I hoard these sounds,
Jealous of beauty that is mine, but not mine
Island, in the middle of the river
Water carves grooves in the sides.
Grass and trees grow, shades of green
Ferns at the bases of the trees,
Moss covering ground without grass.
Painful knots in the bark, pine sap oozing out.
The grass and trees spring up around me,
Filling the space with the beautiful green of summer.
Water parts around me, but also around trees,
And, for a moment, we are one, I am a tree, and I am not a tree.
River breaks around all of us, we are all subject to it.
The river doesn’t care whether tree or person, the river goes on.
And I feel calm, unimportant, part of nature, all of nature.
A rock hits the back of my leg, water moves everything.
Water rushes by rocks, rushes by grass,
Sometimes caught in pools.
Water fills the land of waterfalls.
This poem was written about Tahquamenon Falls in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I LOVE THIS PLACE!
I love Tahquamenon Falls! I also love Shakespeare, so I'll leave you with a cheesy love poem.
Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
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Chorus of the Day!
Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun,
and I say, It's all right
Little darling
It's been a long, cold lonely winter
Little darling
It feels like years since it's been here
Last Chorus of the Day:
Clean by Taylor Swift
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La! ~SCP
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