This blog celebrates writing and a life that unfolds, like a waxing moon, slice by slice.Look for original poetry, thoughts on the creative process, works in progress and anything related to a writer's life.
posted by Judy at 4:54 AM
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For Dana from Judy
May 24, 2008
Long before I saw your face, I’d memorized its laugh lines,
pictured your boyish grin, envisioned the blush of friendship
rising in your cheeks. I knew that kindness dappled your eyes
like sunlight on verdant water. Without ever hearing your voice,
I recognized its gentle tone in the coo of a mourning dove
and heard the peal of its laughter in a Sunday bell tower.
Day after day, I imagined myself steeped in the comfort
of your patient loyalty, and though I’d never felt your touch,
in my dreams your fingertips slid through my hair,
parting it like silken sea grass in flowing water.
In the haze of one summer dream, you arrived, arms overflowing
with honeysuckle, and though I did not know you, still I knew you.
From a place of longing, your eyes beckoned, cradling a brilliant joy.
You emerged from that dream in a warm and final knowing
to speak my name and gently usher me into this space called love.
Tenderly, you traced the lines of my life, sharing, with grace,
the burden of sorrow and the blessing of joy. Behind us--
a lifetime of waiting. Ahead--whispers of bliss. And so, I listen,
heart in hand, as you sing to me, your notes gliding—pianissimo, adagio—
through lyrics of affirmation, while your arms wrap me in an embrace
that will consecrate all the rose-hued dawns and starlit nights,
all the songbird openings and spring-peeper closings
of the days that stretch languidly before us.
Today, we stand at first light of a time called future.
Together, we sing a new song of love, loyalty and friendship.
Step forward with me, Sweet Heart, into the music of this dawn.
posted by Judy at 3:55 AM
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posted by Judy at 6:28 AM
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posted by Judy at 6:20 AM
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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.
posted by Judy at 6:18 AM
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Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of spring
Your winter garment of repentance fling.
The bird of time has but a little way
To flutter - and the bird is on the wing.
posted by Judy at 6:16 AM
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Hope is a thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings a tune without words
And never stops at all.
And sweetest, in the gale, is heard
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That keeps so many warm.
I?ve heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea
Yet, never, in extremity
It ask a crumb of me.
posted by Judy at 6:16 AM
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The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever,
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle;--
Why not I with thine?
See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven,
If it disdain'd its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?
posted by Judy at 6:13 AM
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Sonnet XVIII by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou are 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.
posted by Judy at 6:12 AM
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Sonnets from the Portuguese, XIV by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love, thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.
posted by Judy at 6:08 AM
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O my luve's like a red, red rose.
That's newly sprung in June;
O my luve's like a melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will love 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:
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' it were ten thousand mile!
posted by Judy at 6:05 AM
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A Book of Verse by Omar Khayyam
A book of verse, underneath the bough,
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread - and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness -
Ah, wilderness were paradise enow!
posted by Judy at 6:01 AM
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My True Love Has My Heart by Philip Sydney
My true-love hath my heart and I have his,
By just exchange one for the other given;
I hold his dear and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a better bargain driven.
My true-love hath my heart and I have his,
His heart in me keeps him and me in one;
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;
He loves my heart for once it was his own,
I cherish his because in me it bides.
My true-love hath my heart and I have his.
posted by Judy at 5:58 AM
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Song: To Celia by Ben Jonson
Drink to me, only with thine eyes
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine:
But might I of Jove's nectar sup
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope that there
It could not withered be
But thou thereon didst only breath
And sent'st it back to me:
Since, when it grows and smells, I swear,
Not of itself but thee.
posted by Judy at 5:57 AM
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O, hurry, where by water, among the trees,
The delicate-stepping stag and his lady sigh,
When they have looked upon their images
Would none had ever loved but you and I!
Or have you heard that sliding silver-shoed
Pale silver-proud queen-woman of the sky,
When the sun looked out of his golden hood?
O, that none ever loved but you and I!
O hurry to the ragged wood, for there
I will drive all those lovers out and cry
O, my share of the world, O, yellow hair!
No one has ever loved but you and I.
posted by Judy at 5:55 AM
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Sonnet 43 By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
posted by Judy at 5:54 AM
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Come Slowly by Emily Dickinson
Come slowly, Eden
Lips unused to thee.
Bashful, sip thy jasmines,
As the fainting bee,
Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums,
Counts his nectars -alights,
And is lost in balms!
posted by Judy at 5:50 AM
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Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his heighth be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
posted by Judy at 5:47 AM
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| To Say Before Going to Sleep by Raine Maria Rilke I would like to sing someone to sleep, have someone to sit by and be with. I would like to cradle you and softly sing, be your companion while you sleep or wake. I would like to be the only person in the house who knew: the night outside was cold. And would like to listen to you and outside to the world and to the woods. The clocks are striking, calling to each other, and one can see right to the edge of time. Outside the house a strange man is afoot and a strange dog barks, wakened from his sleep. Beyond that there is silence. My eyes rest upon your face wide-open; and they hold you gently, letting you go when something in the dark begins to move. |
posted by Judy at 5:41 AM
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posted by Judy at 5:30 AM
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posted by Judy at 5:28 AM
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posted by Judy at 11:57 AM
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posted by Judy at 11:54 AM
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posted by Judy at 11:48 AM
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I've decided to embark upon a pre-wedding project for my fiancé. It's entitled "One Thought Each Day... Until May 24th." (May 24th being our wedding day!) Each day, I will post thoughts from me for this man from my favorite poets and writers. Some might be from my own original writing, others, like the one to start this off, pieces of writing from poets or writers I adore. All seek to capture what it is I am feeling as we move closer to our wedding day...
May 2, 2008: From Rainer Maria Rilke...
For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person--it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances....
Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.
(I love you, Honey, with all my heart.)
posted by Judy at 4:09 AM
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Writing is something I have always loved. It is how I best express myself. It is where I am able to bring emotion and communication together. It's not just that it is easy for me; it fills me with joy.
