Halloween comes on Little Cat Feet
Posted By Kathleen David on October 22, 2008
Sorry, I had that poem stuck in my head most of yesterday after I got into a discussion about forms of poetry.
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Fog by Carl Sandburg
I have always liked that poem from the first time I heard it. That and TS Elliot’s the Wasteland which I first read in college. So what poems do you like?
It is hard to believe that it is less than a week and a half to Halloween. I have a number of things I need to do by the end of this weekend for the Holiday. Including getting a project ready for the Kindergarten party next Friday. I also have to sort the comics that we give away to the kids that night. I want to get rubber ducks for the younger kids rather than candy for the health of everyone.
I am grateful for opportunities to work within my community.
Can’t choose between these two…
You, Darkness
You, darkness, that I come from
I love you more than all the fires
that fence in the world,
for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone
and then no one outside learns of you.
But the darkness pulls in everything-
shapes and fires, animals and myself,
how easily it gathers them! –
powers and people-
and it is possible a great presence is moving near me.
I have faith in nights.
Rainer Maria Rilke
OR
The Dream Keeper
Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.
Langston Hughes
Poetry’s always eluded me, so it’s no surprise my favorite poets are the drumbeating Ogden Nash and Theodore Geissel. The poem that’s haunted me since childhood, however, has been, I Was Born Forty Years Ago, by Stuart Cloete, obviously written after WWII, and rather depressing for being in a childrens’ schoolbook. Forgive me for the length:
I was born forty years ago.
I lived…
a little girl with blowing hair.
I grew…
like a flower
in that garden of security.
I knew no fear
in a world of five-per-cent security.
How superficially beautiful it was!
I married.
I was happy.
There was war.
Her went for king and country.
He died for them.
He died with the other millions.
He left me with a son.
That was all that was left of him.
The boy grew up.
There was war.
He went for king and country.
He went in the air.
Like an eagle he went.
They shot him down.
And he died.
You have seen things fall
from a great height.
That is how he died.
Do you know who I am?
I am the woman of forty.
I am English.
I am French… German…
I am Russian…
I am the woman of forty.
My men are dead.