Sunday, October 18, 2009

A poem

Since people are actually inclined to come to this spot every now and again, I thought I should put out another post to bait you into coming back, or maybe let cyberspace know that I'm not dead.
I've been reading/writing a lot of poetry this past year, and I think it is time to share some of my findings with the world. Often poetry is regarded as uninteresting, esoteric, confusing, or some variation on that theme, but I am inclined to side with Leonard Cohen who said; "Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash". So I would like to share some of the ashes that I have been scavenging lately.
Here is a poem that enticed me to loving poetry. I couldn't get the last line out of my head for days...

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree"

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the mourning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

William Butler Yeats (1893)

While I could ramble on about the imagery in this poem and so on, I won't. Poems rely highly on subjectivity, so use your own!

2 comments:

Lisa Sawatzky said...

Oh, this is fabulous! It makes me deep down happy and sad. I want to go now, to anywhere other than this awful job.

heather said...

Yay! I'm glad that you like it. You have also discovered the terrible backlash of poetry, where the imagination is opened, but in the process that horrible gap between imagination/ideal and reality becomes clearer and clearer...

 
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