Poems for Jan. 28-9

 Atlantic: Hopeful images: https://www.theatlantic.com/photography/2025/12/hopeful-images-2025/685223/

How to read a poem:  who's the intended audience, the poem's function, its significance, truth and beauty of it... the bricks and windows are form, rhythm, rhyme, imagery, but it's nice to have a picture of the whole building first! Graeme shared his appreciation of the poem "The Bassoonist".

Judith encouraged us to keep up our spirits with some humor introducing us to the concepts of Pastafarianism as a means to cultivate a sense of humor with about Pasta-ors, and concluding prayers with r'Amen. 

Snow  by Naomi Shihab Nye; Snow Falling by Marianne Boruch; When the Fine Days by Donald Hall; Sherbet  by Cornelius Eady; God Could Not Make Her a Poet  by Cornelius Eady; New Year by Kate Baer

Nutshell

Snow  by Naomi Shihab Nye: This poem hints at a painful backstory, wound in a vignette about a brother and sister sledding.  One person was reminded of the film Stand by Me.

The word choices for this winter scene underline the intertwining of snow and its metaphorical applications starting with impossibility to speak with the scarf knotted over my mouth,  for grief, raging blizzard of sobs, the repeated Ho! Look at him go! pretending to have a good time, and twist of meaning after the isolated couplet "How there can be a place/so cold any movement saves you."  The urgency of the Ho! is accentuated with the banging of the hands, stomping of the feet in the final stanza with the italics:  The father could die!  The Son!  and the abrupt unfinished sentence. The ambiguous nature of possibility, is confirmed in the last fragment: "Before the weather changes". 

 

The telling is poignantly genuine, tapping into universals of distressing relationships wrapped in "a storm of snow".   

 

Snow Falling  by Marianne Boruch:   Poetry, like snow, follows its own weather patterns and contradictions.  The bold opening line opening with what sounds like Hamlet's famous existential question goes deeper stated as the "history of is or is not" followed by three nouns in italics that start with d: dread, darkness, the third, dawn, softened by the poet's "guess" that snow indeed "morphs" into "hardship, delight, mindless over and over".  This  in turn reminds me of Wallace Stevens and his poem the Snowman, and how one "must have a mind of winter."  Boruch embraces contradiction as she considers the choice of snow: freeze or melt and flood.  The syntax is tricky: one possibility in the line and stanza break to the 3rd stanza  could be the contraction of Snow's (Snow is)// only choice:  Subject/Verb.  One could stop there. Snow is only choice.  Or isn't.   

The other possibility is the use of the apostrophe as possessive as in the  "Only choice of snow: freeze."  And then the other choice presented as a fragment.  "Or melt with the consequence of flooding."

Since "choice" is singular perhaps the first interpretation echoes the paradoxical choice: freeze/melt, echoing the single flake in stanza two and its "big/little" fate.

 

She then applies the  meaning of the verb falling with another contradiction: both right now (in italics) and  before human, (so, before the Bible, or the Fall) before glass whose beginning is thanks to fire.  It is as if she preparing the stage for absolute mindfulness of the entrance of Genius, like  a Greek God of inspiration.   A cousin of genesis?  Finally in the 6th stanza, we see her creativity and imagination at work, 

although she tries to deny it in the penultimate stanza.  Is Imagination a question of prophecy or memory?

Tracing the word, snow , we see it followed by falling,morphing; see snow's only choice, snow-in-July, snow as possibly it something we can't see. It falls and the mind mute with it.

 

Her mention of pointillism seems another way to illustrate contradiction as it is a technique of making dots of opposite colors close together.  

When the Fine Days by Donald Hall: After the challenge of Boruch, it was refreshing to enjoy the unfolding of this poem with its staggered lines, mellifluous rhythms, with only Max the dog, named.  

The Camilla mentioned in the penultimate stanza is probably a reference to Alexander Pope's poem about poetry,  Sound and Sense where she is described by Virgil as being so fast that she could run over a cornfield without bending the stalks.

It would seem a fitting reference to his poet wife, Jane Kenyon  and the practice of their art, to capture in words their love of poetry and walking together in this landscape.  There is only slant reference to the fact  that Jane had leukemia and was dying.  Not today those worries.  One goes back to the title which hangs, incomplete, until the mention of the couple on the 6th line with their dog leading the way.  He records one of the fine days -- and the reader sense the fortuitous joy.  No snakes, and free to "fill/with the fullness of the valley's throat".  

Cornelius Eady: two poems.  I was delighted to read tonight that he has been elected as one of the new Chancellors of the American Academy of Poets.  

As poet June Jordan has said,

Cornelius Eady leads and then cuts a line like no one else: following the laughter and the compassionate pith of a dauntless imagination, these poems beeline or zig-zag always to the jugular, the dramatic and unarguable revelation of the heart.

Sherbet:  We all remarked the brilliant restraint of emotion, which only heightens a sense of anger at the racist treatment of a mixed couple in Richmond, VA.  For those who don't know this capital of Virginia, in the 1920's large statues of Confederate heroes were erected on Monument Avenue.  They were pulled down in 2020 at the beginning of  the Black Lives Matter movement.  Eady threads his questions... What poetry could describe ... He slips in the image of the waitress, "mapping the room off/like the end of a/Border dispute-- which metaphor could turn the room more perfectly into a group of islands?  What language to translate the unsaid?  To crown it all, the arrival of the sherbet, as if to say, "we have no problem here, it's you"... What do you call such rich, sweet taste of frozen oranges?  And the final question -- What do we call a weight that doesn't fingerprint, won't shift... line break... and can't explode.

Many knew the law suit of Loving (the ironic surname)  vs. Virginia,  one of the States which forbade mixed marriages. 

God Could not Make her a poet:  here, Cornelius condemns Jefferson, who actually pronounced the title. The reference to Monticello brought up the mention of Benjamin Banneker - the black architect responsible for the design of Washington D.C.   

Several people knew Phillis Wheatley's poetry, which may well have been carefully masking her true sentiments as she imitated the style of the acceptable white elite.  Click on the hyperlink for more information about her.  Below is one of her poems which perhaps hints as how it felt to be known in 2 continents, and yet be treated with the condescension Eady captures.

On Being Brought from Africa to America  by Phillis Wheatley

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, 

That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:

Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

Some view our sable race with scornful eye,

"Their colour is a diabolic die."

Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,

May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

New Year by Kate Baer: 

It's good to call a spade a spade about the hype of promises and resolutions.  Not sure  anyone was clear on the 4th line image,"thumbed through rusted nails just to /stand for its birth"-- like going through old inventory... going through motions?  I do like that the reader is asked indirectly just how to live with the new baby, who, like us, just wants to live.  

  

 

Poems for Jan. 21-2

 

Beat, Old Heart  by Carl Sandburg; Pima Canyon by Kim Addonizio; The Chance  by Arthur Sze 1950; Asphalt Bobbing Like Apples  by Charlotte Pence; Daddy Fell Into the Pond by Alfred Noyes; Another Second, Another 24 Million Pounds: A Cento* by Charlotte Pence; Bassoonist (for C.) by Robin S. Chapman

Many of the poems selected this week  are not creating a sense of enchantment-- but I am hoping by putting that reality on the table, we can pick out the hopeful threads with which to mend and restore our sense of enchantment.  I  quote below  Egon Schiele: 

"We are capable of transforming our mental universe and giving it a charm which makes life more valuable. More valuable since life becomes more joyful, thanks to the extraordinary effort needed to create this charm. 

Life is wasted when we make it more terrifying, precisely because it is so easy to do so. It is an easy task, because people who are intellectually lazy are convinced that this miserable terror is “the truth”, that this terror is knowledge of the “extra-mental” world. This is an easy way out, resulting in a banal explanation of the world as terrifying. 

Creating enchantment is an effective means of counteracting this depressing, banal habit."

Nutshell:

Beat Old Heart: There's a sense of camraderie in the word "old" mentioned 5 days in this poem; a sense of an older man giving himself a pep talk to keep on going.  Perhaps in the style of a Tennyson (Ring out wild bells!)  with the insistent repetitions,  

we noted the inclusiveness of a world full of things, all beating.  The bars might be of music, or the cage of the body, or sandbars of the sea.  Curious that stragglers looks much like strugglers which made some think  the bars might be akin to a poem and the obstacles it faces.  The final word "scars" has a sense of wearing a badge of honor.   A fine poem to remind us all to continue on with resilience. 

Pima Canyon:  We are fortunate to have people who know the Arizona canyons, where you can "walk, talk and gawk".  The beauty is indeed almost savage and the poem only has one mention of it, as 

the mountain glow every evening. "The world seeps in no matter what."  One idea for the title is that it offers a parallel between the harsh aspect of the desert as metaphor for navigating Parkingson's.  Elizabeth wonders if she looks "scrawny".  Perhaps like the saguaros, "spiny and upright, pocked with nest holes".  

"Ask the Canyon"... confirms the wondering about the disease -- is it the microplastics... the fact that you can't "go back" with the uncanny detail of "having a smaller shadow"... the "dirty contrails".  The tenderness of the ending.  The maybe's, but not yet darling, not yet.

The Chance: It's not ever fair to judge a poet's merit by one poem alone.  I am not sure when this poem by the current National Poet Laureate, Arthur Sze was penned.  Who is the intended audience?  What might be the poem's function, its significance?  Scanning the 22 lines for any clues given by form, rhythm, rhyme, imagery we all tried to find a way to navigate what seemed to be a confusing  medley of messages.  Why The chance in the title, and a chance on the final line?  It seems to be a meditation delivered in stream of consciousness about passion.  

comments:  The ending is powerful and has a sense of redemption:   even if the darkness precedes and follows/ us, we have a chance, briefly, to shine. 

Yes,  but is this ending "earned", hence credible and can the reader trust it?

There is a dark/light contrast, but what is the role of the example of the magician caught in his own chains?  The author may want passion that grows and grows (as opposed to ironwood that hardens and hardens), but there is no personal evidence of either.  Perhaps the "approach 30" refers to speed limit, perhaps to age, but either way, distances to where?

Asphalt Bobbing:  The title is catchy, as it is an unusual simile.  The opening line is provocative

with a suspenseful line break.  But... it feels more an exercise using the Golden Shovel technique referring to the Declaration of Independence than a poem.   Do we want another re-hash of the news?   It may indeed reiterate things we are facing in our country right now with the second round with Trump, but comments were more about books or articles people were reminded about.  

-- The Who:  "Meet the new boss... same as the old boss" (for King George/George Washington) https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/who/wontgetfooledagain.html

Brian Doyle: The Plover :  https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/9393/the-plover

parallels the idea of bringing a new world about... islands are just tips of mountains, and it is the sea in charge.

Daddy Fell into the Pond!  We didn't really discuss this one, but it was a fun relief! 

Another Second, Another 24 Million Pounds: A cento:

Apparently some circles use the Italian pronunciation CHEN-to of this old form of borrowing lines from notable thinkers, and some use American pronunciation of SENT-o.  Be that as it may, without knowing the form, or that all the lines were from an Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology, Ghost-Fishing, edited by Melissa Tuckey with a forward by Camile T. Dungy, or without matching each line with a relatively well-known poet whose poem is in this anthology, does this work as a poem?

One person puts it this way -- "form provides the bricks and windows but it's nice to have a picture of the whole building first."  What message is given?  Is it another crazy quilt?  Do we have to know where each patch came from?  Here were some of the comments:

Like reading piles of books: Is it worth all the agony?

It's fine to experiment with form -- why not a 3-D poem -- but no poem should sound like a research paper... 

incoherent b/c it doesn't use a single voice of an individual and relies on gimmick.

If she is using other's work, did she think about  keeping the spirit of each author's poem in the eco-anthology?  

This led into a rousing discussion about poetry, alphabets, the future of literature and the role AI will play to determine it.  

This left no time for the final poem, Bassoonist (for C.) except to read it, and enjoy the sounds and rhythms.   I am hoping Graeme, who proposed it, will share what makes it worth one's while.

At Rundel, we only had a short time, and noted the sense of a backstory, but without any information.

Who is C?  Why was it written?  What does modern music have to do with this?

Poems for Jan. 14-5

 The Coming of Light  by Mark Strand by 1934 –2014; Proof ~ Cornelius Eady; (Poem for inauguration of Zohran Mamdani)  The Shop by Joyce Sutphen; Dementia Sonnet  by Justin Rigamonti;  Crepuscule with Muriel  by Marilyn Hacker ; December Morning by W.S. Merwin; Issa's Porch  by Steve Williams  

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[1] go to minute 34 on the youtube for Cornelius' remarks.  He reads the poem at minute 3:00.

Nutshell:

Coming of Light:  In seven lines,  laden with l's, one senses that "late" is that moment at the end of one's life. The opening poem of his volume, The Late Hour,   (2002),   Strand delivers  images such as candles "lit as if by themselves", and dreams that "pour into your pillows", and repeats "Even this late", as if to confirm that love is always ready to bloom.  One thinks of the parallel Festival of Lights and the tone is one of reassurance even in the dark. At Rundel, Cass shared her favorite poem by Strand Moontan

filled with the same sense of magic.

Proof:  Curiously, I had heard at first, the title as Truth, knowing the context of this poem delivered by Rochester native, Cornelius Eady on the occasion of Zohran Mamdani's Inauguration as mayor of NYC.

note: third stanza, 10th line: the first word is not will but where. 

One person felt it was a beautiful love poem to this city, the starting point of so many who have immigrated to this country.  The lines are humble, yet powerful, with the repeated "you have to imagine"

shifting to an almost imperative "you've got to imagine".  What reassurance wrapped in the repeated "who said" as he rolls out dismissive talk that tries to invisibilize  those who are not part of the powerful and privileged.  The inclusion of the James Baldwin quote, with visceral touches of details describing those who have risen up from slavery, "the taste of us, the spice of us, the hollers and rhythms of us" lead to the repeated "up from" -- to a new hope infused with joy "that wears down the rock of no."  

Like the first poem's mention of candles, there is a sense of the city lit by itself, an insistence hammering out the celebration many felt with the election of Obama, that yes, the election of a Black Man to an important public office is absolute proof that all "can make it". Listen to the  Poem, [1] 

 It's inspiring for all of us to imagine all the "lucky selves waiting for our arrival, with soil for our roots".

The Shop:  I mentioned the trick of photographers in a city landscape to "put in a person". Here, the poet has written a love poem to the person who occupies this shop.  We think, it might be if not her father, a special father-figure.   It starts with an unassuming title, and tercets stuffed with adjectives to describe all the old-fashioned (non-plastic) tools.  The soul of the person is hinted at -- first a finger, then a mask for a face, arriving at the tender metaphor of the "work-lathered leather" of the old harnesses,

soft as the reins of memory/guiding him through the tangle/of one year into another.

We discussed the mood created by the mention of the dusty light, the vise that could crush , the mouthless face of the welding mask, the sense of honest work.  There's a sense of wistfulness, but not sorrow. 

A small aside about spelling of vise:  In Britain, there are two acceptable versions of the spelling: vice and vise.  It is clearly not the abstraction of vice, but the physical presence of a piece of equipment that holds things in place.  

Crepuscule with Muriel:  Do click on the hyperlinks for Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980)  and Marilyn Hacker (1942) if you do not know these poets. The poem reads as an elegy for Muriel Rukeyser, a passionate political activist with a keen interest in the shared disciplines of poetry and science (symbolic language and use of the imagination.)  Hacker, another poet with a peppery biography is known for her skillful formalism and feminism.  For a firey reading of the crackling consonants in this poem click 

here : https://poetryarchive.org/poem/crepuscule-muriel/

Note how each end word has a /k/, or /x-cks/ sound.  One can imagine Hacker on the NYC subway, reminiscing about her older mentor who indeed suffered from several strokes.  Her deft description brings alive what it is like to be locked inside a body after a stroke-- in this case Muriel's mind and her "dream-life logic" -- how she encodes it "in nervous tics/translated to a syntax with connects/intense and unfashionable politics/with morning coffee, Hudson sunsets, sex"

This poem is from the collection Desesperanto, a combination word of despair and esperanto, the artificial language intended to be universally understood.  It describes Hacker's life as a lesbian, the illness of loved ones, anger over world events.

For an image of the penultimate line animal warmth of bricks, I share what the French would call "crepuscule du matin". The word refers to the kind of luminosity the sun brings both at sunrise and sunset. 

photos by Gabriel Saphar

Shortly after sunrise, 1/8/2026

 

Dementia Sonnet:  The opening sentence with its flat statement about relief, with an enjambment after doesn't/ falling on remember is unnerving. My initial thought without ending the sentence, is the contradiction that there's relief in loving someone who doesn't -- but doesn't what?  Love?  Who can't love back?  (There's relief in loving someone who doesn't/remember you.)  

  Fortunately, twelve lines later, one arrives at relieves, and the verb expands the meaning to imply "responsibility has shifted in the relationship".  A provocative poem on a delicate subject, it provided a very thoughtful discussion. Bernie, as Geriatrician, offered helpful comments about dementia and how the most difficult stage for families is when the loved one no longer remembers your name.  On the 6th line, the adjective "warped" is a curious choice, followed by rose:  perhaps to imply an association of the hardness of a rose-granite tabletop, with entering a "time warp".

The note furnished by the poet in Rattle magazine reads: “I write poetry as a way of moving through life, plumbing its shadows—poetry as a torch held aloft, poetry as a stone dropped down a well to see how far it goes. As Robert Irwin said, ‘Art is the placing of your attention on the periphery of knowing,’ and that’s what poetry is for me. All of these poems are also loose or near sonnets, because I’m partial to the simple mechanism of the volta as a realization, as a deepening, as an epiphany—one that arrives for ‘a momentary stay against confusion,’ but then goes its merry way, taking all clarity with it.”

We didn't have time to go into this, as the session was finished abruptly at 1:15.

If one counts to the 8th line, every time you leave, your name slips off, to...

indeed the poem shifts to a different direction of wondering about where one stands in a relationship without name.  I do love Robert Frost's explanation of poetry as a "momentary stay against confusion",

and am glad to read the poet's note.  Clarity is not a given in poetry which provides us with more questions than answers.  We are given instead, a meditative reminder, of the importance of touch, of breath.

  

At Rundel we discussed December Morning by Merwin and Issa's Porch.

Merwin:  There's the sense of a rush of a thought in this unpunctuated poem.  Happiness appears as end word on the first, fifth lines and moves to the beginning of the 19th line, (3rd from the end).  Does it matter who Paula is?  We enjoyed the 6th line "the Fates so near that I can hear them".  There is something painfully poignant imagining the old poet by his books.  It is not that he is the one faithful to them, as they are to him as "someone they used to know", but rather, the intimation that he has moved on. 

This is "late happiness" as in the first poem.  Never owned by anyone-- it comes when it will --

rather like those candles that seem to light themselves, the coming of love, of light.

Pittsford O Pen added these reflections: Happiness is mentioned 3 times, but not in as a typical cliché or piece of advice.  Merwin is on the brink of blindness, needing to dictate his poems to his wife, Paula,

and gently embraces old age, with gentle hints about darkness of old regrets with their rancor from which he feels released.   The late arrival of such happiness is often unplanned, unexpected, and if there is a moral, it is that one need to be open and willing to accept the fullness of a moment.

Issa's Porch.  I believe the poet is referring to the haiku master, and of course a haiku would not have a title.  Like a haiku, the three lines tease us, as if moving "ice" and "thin" along with "hole" and "argument" so we can skate on thin ice, fall in, and that's the end of the argument.  I pass the poem back to you, dear reader, to puzzle with.  Porch is intermediary space -- between outside and indoors.

Pittsford O Pen: Issa, as haiku master, is known for dealing with feelings.  He suffered severe losses, 

and able to let go of perhaps the discomfort of knowing death will have the final word.  A porch is a place to relax... out of the elements of hot sun or rain. 

  

January 7-8

i am running into a new year,  by Lucille Clifton;  Wolf Moon by Susan Mitchell; While the World Falls Apart, I watch the Great British Bakeoff in Bed  by Jillian Stacia;  A Fabulous Night. by Bruce Weigl; After Our Daughter's Wedding by Ellen Bass

I started the session with this Chinese Proverb.

 

If there is light in the soul,

there is beauty in the person;

if there is beauty in the person,

there will be harmony in the house;

if there is harmony in the house,

there will be order in the nation; 

if there is order in the nation,

there will be peace in the world.

 

Then, these ending lines from Counting, New Years Morning, what powers yet remain:

(full poem hyperlinked here  Hirshberg:

Stone did not become apple. War did not become peace. 

Yet joy still stays joy. Sequins stay sequins. Words still bespangle, bewilder. 

Today, I woke without answer.

The day answers, unpockets a thought from a friend  

don’t despair of this falling world, not yet

didn’t it give you the asking

 

Nutshell of discussion

i am running... :  we immediately noted the lack of capitalization and punctuation.  It heightens the sense of motion, that defies being pinned down by time.  The simile of the old years akin to a wind, and the power of the poet who seizes them, with the additional simile describing her strong fingers akin to her promises in the first 6 short lines  create a whirlwind. The reader will not know anything about the past, but senses something difficult may have happened when she was 36 since that number is repeated -- and the unpunctuated sentence continues with a "but"

into the repeat of the first line.  The last two lines have an odd syntax, but shows the power of poetry to compress:

it could be understood this way:  "I beg what I love and I beg what I leave" (as dual subject) to forgive her.

AI gives this interpretation:  "This request for forgiveness underscores the poem's themes of reconciliation with the past and the hope for understanding and compassion from both oneself and others".  What AI leaves out is the layered meanings of the verbs, "beg" and "leave", perhaps implying her leaving is also an implied permission she gives herself.

 

Poetry is NOT about answers, but invites us to reflect on our own contradictions.

Clifton's choice to avoid capitalization and punctuation applies to her work in general.  It could be argued that she is rebelling against traditional rules, but it could also possibly imply that she is not putting herself above anyone else.

 

The poem has great power and overall a spirit of uplift.   

 

Wolf Moon: This year, Jan. 3, we had a full moon, called the Wolf Moon according to classification of Indigenous North American tribes.  The implications of winter cold, where wolves would howl in hunger and to protect territory come to mind. In this 14-line poem, the title appears in the penultimate line.  Looking at the 8th line to see if there is some sonnet technique of a turn, the words "not afraid" appear only to reappear two lines later to deliver what seems to be yet another clue with the line "not afraid to let bliss devour me whole".  Or grief... Is bliss a way of thinking about death where "my forever in orbit" is some afterlife, in some stratosphere for the soul?  

 

The opening line, "hold on" perhaps is advice, or warning.  Who is "they", and who is "she"?   The kite's will, as wind, is compared to love in its ability to carry surrender and forgiveness. Is that "but" an acceptance of something greater than hanging on?   Some thought the poem about  a mother about to lose her child.  Who is "I" wanting this kite to swoop her up and "rub her nose in the sky" with the wolf moon?  Is this an ecological poem, where we who are losing our mother earth, howl at the loss of wilderness?  Is  this a parallel to the idea of hope, a speck, and gone?   

 

Regardless, there is something gripping about the poem, inviting us to find ways to question within ourselves all it evokes. 

 

While the World Falls Apart:  who can resist alliterative fun and metaphorical puns!  For fun, and comparison, I give a link to the 18th century poem:  To Mrs K____, On Her Sending Me an English Christmas Plum-Cake at Paris  18th c.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51877/to-mrs-k-on-her-sending-me-an-english-christmas-plum-cake-at-paris

 

A Fabulous Night... the incomplete title makes me want to sing the rest of the Moondance—"A fantabulous night for romance..." except the poet takes a quick turn from even "a gift from the cosmos" to a memory of war.  His conversational tone establishes a sense of trust to follow his balancing act  of things the reader might relate to such as the size and shape of the moon, misleading words, with his implied "private juxtapositions".   This might invite the reader to further delve into how we all hold our contradictions.  At the end, the highflown last lines seem to be straight from Shakespeare.  The  pathetic fallacy of heartbeats allowing the wind to stir the branches matches the incomplete title.  

 

After Our Daughter's Wedding:  This poem from 2002, Mules of Love brings up the strength of maternal instinct in unusual ways.  The title clues us in to place and occasion.  Remnants, half-empty glasses like lingering sunbathers.... only half-prepare the sense of loss, on line 7, where in her "flowered dress" the poet cries.  This is not a poem that will provide stanza breaks, but delivers a fell swoop of a meditation about the biologic imperative of being a mother. 

The unidentified "you" asking "do you feel like you've given her away", since  it is "our" daughter in the title , one assumes is the poet's partner.  What a contrast one participant said,

with the "Father of the Bride" !   The reference to "the" pills, could imply the possibility of an overdose and perhaps a legitimate worry along with an exaggerated list  of possibilities which also sneaks in the fact the poet got the time wrong on the rehearsal dinner.  

There's no break in the poem driving in the confirmation that we are not the ones in charge.    

 

West Wind in Winter:  Not every poem is for every reader.  Some might admire this poem,

the form and sound, the information about the poet born in 1847.  Some thought of Shelley's Ode written in a fit of romantic passion in 1819 in Florence towards the end of his short life. 

 

West Wind in Winter:  Not every poem is for every reader.  Some might admire this poem,

the form and sound, the information about the poet born in 1847.  Some thought of Shelley's Ode written in a fit of romantic passion in 1819 in Florence towards the end of his short life. 

The West Wind is a soft wind -- and appealingly drawn as comparison to "my poet" -- perhaps implying the poet inside of Alice Meynell, woman-suffragist. Judith kindly referred to this  [1]

Westron Wynde when wyll thow blow

The small rayne down can Rayne

Cryst yf my love were in my Armys

And I yn my bed Agayne

Judith continues: "The smoothed out version I know has “the small rain now doth rain,” and Christ that my love were in my arms”  which is not too far off.  It may have been in the very old Oxford anthology I used to have..." 

 

I stumbled on this lullaby by Tennyson -- with words and visual of moon which might either charm or repel.  As ever, should anyone find a treasure, please do share! 

 

 

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[1] Judith's note: It's been around since 1530, according to Wikipedia, which notes that it is quoted by Hemingway and Orwell, among others.  I recognized it in Hemingway when I encountered it in A Farewell to Arms, but do not remember it from Orwell’s Burmese Days.