Saturday Poetry -- The Fieldmouse

The Fieldmouse

~Cecil Frances Alexander

Where the acorn tumbles down,

Where the ash tree sheds its berry,

With your fur so soft and brown,

With your eye so round and merry,

Scarcely moving the long grass,

Fieldmouse, I can see you pass.

Little thing, in what dark den,

Lie you all the winter sleeping?

Till warm weather comes again,

Then once more I see you peeping

Round about the tall tree roots,

Nibbling at their fallen fruits.

Fieldmouse, fieldmouse, do not go,

Where the farmer stacks his treasure,

Find the nut that falls below,

Eat the acorn at your pleasure,

But you must not steal the grain

He has stacked with so much pain.

Make your hole where mosses spring,

Underneath the tall oak's shadow,

Pretty, quiet harmless thing,

Play about the sunny meadow.

Keep away from corn and house,

None will harm you, little mouse.

Saturday Poetry/Song -- Shall We Dance?

I don't know why, but this song/scene has always been one of the most sensual pieces to me. The passion displayed and restrained between Anna and the king is amazing. So for today enjoy this video and see if you get goose bumps!

Bread -- {saturday poetry}

BREAD

"Be gentle when you touch bread.

Let it not lie

Uncared for,

Unwanted.

So often Bread

Is taken for granted.

Beauty of patient toil,

wind and rain

have caressed it.

Christ often blessed it.

Be gentle when you touch bread."

- Freda Elton Young

Saturday Poetry -- An Assignment

My daughter received this writing assignment in class this week.

Write words or phrases that come to mind for each line:

::Line One - Items found inside whatever you called home when you were a child

::Line Two - Items found in your yard (if you had one)

::Line Three - Items found in your neighborhood

:: Line Four - Names of relatives, especially one that link you to your past

::Line Five - Sayings

::Line Six - Names of goods and dishes that recall family gatherings

::Line Seven - Names of places you kept your memories

It's an interesting task. Below are my daughter's and mine. Try it yourself and link back up in the comments.

******

I am from old china dolls, books galore, and yellow legal pads spread throughout the house

I am from flowers run wild, old dog toys, and trees that reach the sky

I am from the little church playground with the winding creek

I am from Aunt Wanda, Linda, and Nana and Pa

I am from "I will always love you, no matter what" and "We'll get through this if we stick together"

I am from green bean casserole, Nana rolls, mincemeat pie, and oven-fried chicken

I am from countless journals that I always lost

I am from love and struggles and a family that made me strong

******

I am from books in every room, dinner guests, and sermons

I am from white dogwoods, sweet honeysuckle, pink mimosas, and morning glories climbing up the fence

I am from houses in rows along the busy street, the health food store and the corner market

I am from Auntie and Uncle Horace, and Nur and Dee, and college students revolving through the house

I am from “Daddy needs quiet” and “What will they think of you?”

I am from pink rose china, silver spoons, fresh baked bread, and shortbread cookies

I am from boxes of trinkets, a wooden purse, and Dahlia

I am from love, and lies, and denials, and pain


Where are you from?

Saturday Poetry -- January Morn

image courtesy of Winter Trees

"Bare branches of each tree

on this chilly January morn
look so cold so forlorn.
Gray skies dip ever so low
left from yesterday's dusting of snow.
Yet in the heart of each tree
waiting for each who wait to see
new life as warm sun and breeze will blow,
like magic, unlock springs sap to flow,
buds, new leaves, then blooms will grow."

- Nelda Hartmann

Merry Christmas Eve (Saturday Poetry. . . sort of)

Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.

*****

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/

Saturday Poetry -- O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appear

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free

Thine own from Satan's tyranny

From depths of Hell Thy people save

And give them victory o'er the grave

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer

Our spirits by Thine advent here

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night

And death's dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,

And open wide our heavenly home;

Make safe the way that leads on high,

And close the path to misery.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,

Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height,

In ancient times did'st give the Law,

In cloud, and majesty and awe.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel - Enya

Saturday Poetry -- A grateful heart

Thou hast given so much to me

Give one thing more-a grateful heart;

Not thankful when it pleaseth me,

But such a heart whose pulse may be

Thy praise.

...George Herbert

Saturday Poetry -- Autumn Fires

Autumn Fires

In the other gardens

And all up the vale,

From the autumn bonfires

See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over

And all the summer flowers,

The red fire blazes,

The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!

Something bright in all!

Flowers in the summer,

Fires in the fall!

Robert Louis Stevenson -  1913

Saturday Poetry -- In Flanders Fields

In honor of all who have served . . . 

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow 

Between the crosses row on row, 

That mark our place; and in the sky 

The larks, still bravely singing, fly 

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago 

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 

Loved and were loved, and now we lie 

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe: 

To you from failing hands we throw 

The torch; be yours to hold it high. 

If ye break faith with us who die 

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 

In Flanders fields.

--John McCrae

Saturday Poetry: Names

there were names
always names.

Welty, O'Connor, Updike, and Sinclair.

words on pages,
of such enormous import.

Hemingway, Melville, Faulkner, and Hawthorne.

books to be
sheltered and revered.

Milton, Capote, Anderson, and Twain.

papers written by him.
read by him.

Our Town, twinship, diaries, and sermons.

where did the little girl fit in?
who were all these people 
why were they so important to him?
their stories so much more important than hers.

--mlp 2011

Saturday Poetry

not really poetry.

dd and I were driving around town

yesterday running errands

and this song came on

my iPod.

we both really liked this movie

when it came out

years ago (1998).

this is my favorite song

from the movie, although

all the music is amazing.

I hope you enjoy it!

Saturday Poetry -- The Lanyard

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

--Billy Collins     

Saturday Poetry -- Because I Love Her

Several years ago someone gave me this poem. Since that time is has been in a prominent place in my work area. I saw it this morning; read through it again and couldn't help thinking how appropriate it was for me after the work I've done this week. It is longer than my usual post, but I hope you'll take the time to read it and the accompanying scriptures. Blessings!

Because I Love Her

I made her . . . she is different. She is unique.

With love I formed her in her mother's womb.

I fashioned her with great joy.

I remember, with great pleasure, the day

I created her.

(Psalm 139:13-16)

I love her smile.

I love her ways.

I love to hear her laugh.

And the silly things she says and does.

She brings me great pleasure.

This is how I made her.

(Psalm 139:17)

I made her pretty and not beautiful,

Because I knew her heart,

And knew she would be vain . . . 

I wanted her to search out her heart

And to learn that it would be Me in her

That would make her beautiful . . . 

And it would be Me in her

That would draw friends to her.

(I Peter 3:3-5)

I made her in such a way,

That she would need Me.

I made her a little more lonesome that she

would like to be . . . 

Only because I want her to turn to Me

in her loneliness . . . 

Only because I need for her to learn and 

depend on Me . . . 

I know her heart, I know if I had not made

her like this

She would go her own chosen way

And forget me . . .  her Creator.

(Psalm 62:5-8)

I gave her many good and happy things . . . 

Because I love her.

(Psalm 84:11 & Romans 8:32)

Because I love her,

I have seen her broken heart . . . 

And the tears she's cried alone.

I have cried with her,

And had a broken heart, too.

(Psalm 56:8)

Many times she has stumbled and fallen alone

Only because she would not hold My Hand.

So many lessons she's learned the hard way

Because she would not listen

To My Voice . . . 

(Isaiah 53:6)

So many times I have sat back

And sadly watched her go her merry way alone,

Only to watch her return to My Arms,

sad and broken.

(Isaiah 66:2)

And now she is Mine again . . . 

I made her, and then I bought her . . . 

Because I love her.

(Romans 5:8)

I have to reshape and remold her . . . 

To renew her to what I had planned for her to be.

It has not been easy for her or for Me.

(Jeremiah 29:11)

I want her to be conformed to My Image . . . 

This high goal I have set for her,

Because I love her.

(2 Corinthians 2:14)