Tag: poetry

A Poem for Easter and Spring

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

–Alfred Housman (1896): from A Shropshire Lad.

Shrimps are not for Wimps

Shrimps are not for Wimps
by Abby Reynolds

One day I walked into the science class,
I was preoccupied as I looked into the looking glass.
For Dr. Urbano had cooked up a surprise,
And after I wished I was at the car rental Enterprise.
Then I would be able to drive away,
From the disgusting horrors I saw that day.
It started with a metal tray,
With icky rubber a sickly gray.
He brought the probe and scalpel too,
My o my, Sydney turned blue!
Then a smelly smell filled the room,
Making us cough and gag all too soon.
When I saw the shrimp my stomach did flip-flop,
For the color was like that of a caramel lollipop.
I inhaled through my mouth to calm my brain,
Trying not to think how the shrimp was slain.
It helped somewhat until I saw Sydney,
Who was slicing and dicing at a kidney.
She looked up and grinned a big grin,
A smear of blood dripping down her chin.
I will kindly spare you the rest of the story,
For I fear that it gets MUCH too gory!

And there I was thinking that the shrimp dissection had gone rather well.

Dispensing Poetry

William Sieghart does a wonderful question and answer in his Poetry Pharmacy in the Guardian, where he recommends poetry to salve his questioners existential (and not so existential) needs.

For example:

Hi William,

Do you have any poems that clear up a hangover or diarrhoea (preferably both)?

Dr Sieghart’s remedy:

Sounds like you have been living life to the full! Why not congratulate yourself on the good times you enjoyed yesterday rather than being miserable about your today’s predicament? Dryden’s Happy the Man is a good bet:

Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

Another:

It’s a restriction insisted upon by my tenancy – I’m not allowed to keep a dog. I need a poem to help fill the gap left by the absence of a faithful hirsute canine companion. Dr Sieghart, what do you suggest?

Dr Sieghart’s remedy:
I prescribe some of the most famous words in English – ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ by Oscar Hammerstein II. The great consoling line of the title comes after the pain of isolation:

Walk on, through the wind
Walk on, through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone
You’ll never walk alone.

Cave Formation in the Ozarks

Ceiling of Twin Cave.

Rain falls.
Some runs off,
Some seeps into the ground.

Water drips from the tips of limestone straws on the roof of Twins Cave.

It trickles through soil.
Leaching acids, organic,
Out of the leaf litter,

But even without these,
It’s already, every so slightly, corrosive,
From just the carbon dioxide in the air.

Gravity driven,
The seeping water seeks the bedrock,
Where it might find,
In the Ozark Mountains,
Limestone.

Planktonic shell (from Coon Creek which is 30 million years old, compared to the limestone rocks in the Ozarks which are 300 million years old.)

Limestone:
Microscopic shells, of plankton,
Raining down, over millenia,
Compacting into rocks,
In a closing ocean,
As North America and Africa collide,
From the Devonian to the Carboniferous.

Orogenic uplift,
Ocean-floor rocks,
Become mountains,

Appalachians, Ouachitas,
The Ozark Plateau.

The collision of North America and Africa uplifted the limestone rocks from the closing ocean (the Rheic Ocean) to create the Ouachita Mountains and Ozark Plateau. (Figure adapted from iimage by Dr. Ron Blakey - http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7).

Limestone dissolves,
In acid water.
Shaping holes; caves in bedrock,
Where we go,
Exploring.

Crawling through the "Brith Canal".

If Children Live With …

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
…
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
…
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
…
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.

–Nolte (1998): Children Learn What They Live via Children Learn What They Live: A Chronology of Different Versions.

Winter Lies Ahead

Spring has gone in the meadow
spring has gone in the flowers
spring has gone in the trees
and winter is coming

It is fall
with leaves to wrestle
and sticks to fall
for spring has gone

And there are many things to pick
to harvest the apple trees in the orchard
to harvest the paint berries
to harvest the vines
so there are many things that must come to pass

There are many things to end
many things to fall
winter lies ahead.

– by Maren