POETRY

[Julia A Knaake]

please give credit to the owner even if you are the owner...thank  you

[Julia A Knaake]

Blueberries

By Robert Frost

1874-1963

---

"You ought to have seen what I saw on my way

To the village, through Mortenson's pasture to-day:

Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb,

Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum
In the cavernous pail of the first one to come!

And all ripe together, not some of them green

And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!"
"I don't know what part of the pasture you mean."

"You know where they cut off the woods--let me see--

It was two years ago--or no!--can it be
No longer than that?--and the following fall

The fire ran and burned it all up but the wall."

"Why, there hasn't been time for the bushes to grow.
That's always the way with the blueberries, though:

There may not have been the ghost of a sign

Of them anywhere under the shade of the pine,
But get the pine out of the way, you may burn

The pasture all over until not a fern

Or grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick,

And presto, they're up all around you as thick

And hard to explain as a conjuror's trick."

"It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit.

I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot.

And after all really they're ebony skinned:
The blue's but a mist from the breath of the wind,

A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand,

And less than the tan with which pickers are tanned."

"Does Mortenson know what he has, do you think?"

"He may and not care and so leave the chewink

To gather them for him--you know what he is.

He won't make the fact that they're rightfully his

An excuse for keeping us other folk out."

"I wonder you didn't see Loren about."

"The best of it was that I did. Do you know,

I was just getting through what the field had to show

And over the wall and into the road,

When who should come by, with a democrat-load

Of all the young chattering Lorens alive,
But Loren, the fatherly, out for a drive."

"He saw you, then? What did he do? Did he frown?"

"He just kept nodding his head up and down.

You know how politely he always goes by.

But he thought a big thought--I could tell by his eye--

Which being expressed, might be this in effect:

'I have left those there berries, I shrewdly suspect,

To ripen too long. I am greatly to blame.'"

"He's a thriftier person than some I could name."

"He seems to be thrifty; and hasn't he need,

With the mouths of all those young Lorens to feed?

He has brought them all up on wild berries, they say,

Like birds. They store a great many away.

They eat them the year round, and those they don't eat

They sell in the store and buy shoes for their feet."

"Who cares what they say? It's a nice way to live,

Just taking what Nature is willing to give,

Not forcing her hand with harrow and plow."

"I wish you had seen his perpetual bow--

And the air of the youngsters! Not one of them turned,

And they looked so solemn-absurdly concerned."

"I wish I knew half what the flock of them know

Of where all the berries and other things grow,

Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top

Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.

I met them one day and each had a flower

Stuck into his berries as fresh as a shower;
Some strange kind--they told me it hadn't a name."

"I've told you how once not long after we came,

I almost provoked poor Loren to mirth

By going to him of all people on earth

To ask if he knew any fruit to be had
For the picking. The rascal, he said he'd be glad

To tell if he knew. But the year had been bad.

There had been some berries--but those were all gone.

He didn't say where they had been. He went on:

'I'm sure--I'm sure'--as polite as could be.

He spoke to his wife in the door, 'Let me see,
Mame, we don't know any good berrying place?

' It was all he could do to keep a straight face.

"If he thinks all the fruit that grows wild is for him,

He'll find he's mistaken. See here, for a whim,

We'll pick in the Mortensons' pasture this year.

We'll go in the morning, that is, if it's clear,

And the sun shines out warm: the vines must be wet.

It's so long since I picked I almost forget

How we used to pick berries: we took one look round,

Then sank out of sight like trolls underground,

And saw nothing more of each other, or heard,

Unless when you said I was keeping a bird
Away from its nest, and I said it was you.

'Well, one of us is.' For complaining it flew

Around and around us. And then for a while

We picked, till I feared you had wandered a mile,

And I thought I had lost you. I lifted a shout

Too loud for the distance you were, it turned out,

For when you made answer, your voice was as low

As talking--you stood up beside me, you know."

"We sha'n't have the place to ourselves to enjoy--

Not likely, when all the young Lorens deploy.

They'll be there to-morrow, or even to-night.

They won't be too friendly--they may be polite--

To people they look on as having no right

To pick where they're picking. But we won't complain.

You ought to have seen how it looked in the rain,

The fruit mixed with water in layers of leaves,

Like two kinds of jewels, a vision for thieves."

[Julia A Knaake]

I never read   a cowboys Prayer before...thank you for introducing us to Charles Badger Clark

I know there are a lot of cowboy poets but haver not read them yet...thank you for posting

[Julia A Knaake]

BIRCHES

 

When I see birches bend to left and right 
Across the lines of straighter darker trees, 
I like to think some boy's been swinging them. 
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay 
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them 
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning 
After a rain. They click upon themselves 
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored 
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. 
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells 
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-- 
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away 
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. 
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, 
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed 
So low for long, they never right themselves: 
You may see their trunks arching in the woods 
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground 
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair 
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. 
But I was going to say when Truth broke in 
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm 
I should prefer to have some boy bend them 
As he went out and in to fetch the cows-- 
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, 
Whose only play was what he found himself, 
Summer or winter, and could play alone. 
One by one he subdued his father's trees 
By riding them down over and over again 
Until he took the stiffness out of them, 
And not one but hung limp, not one was left 
For him to conquer. He learned all there was 
To learn about not launching out too soon 
And so not carrying the tree away 
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise 
To the top branches, climbing carefully 
With the same pains you use to fill a cup 
Up to the brim, and even above the brim. 
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, 
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. 
So was I once myself a swinger of birches. 
And so I dream of going back to be. 
It's when I'm weary of considerations, 
And life is too much like a pathless wood 
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs 
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping 
From a twig's having lashed across it open. 
I'd like to get away from earth awhile 
And then come back to it and begin over. 
May no fate willfully misunderstand me 
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away 
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: 
I don't know where it's likely to go better. 
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, 
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk 
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, 
But dipped its top and set me down again. 
That would be good both going and coming back. 
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

~ Robert Frost

[Julia A Knaake]

September 10

 

The year starts home.

Morning broke clear today

no fog...no rain

only a clear cold

September morning.

 

It's autumn all right

you can feel it

with the taste of summer

still in my mouth

my lungs breath autumn.

 

 

The year goes back

from where it came 

like a battered kite

being brought in

like a watch spring unwinding

like children to houses

when darkness comes.

 

now night hovers

and madrigals begin again.

 

 

~ Rod McKuen

[Julia A Knaake]

The keeper of Dreams

Sometimes I wake up early,

then looking at the clock

I try to sink back into sleep

and pick up the interrupted dreams.

Not always easy but I try.

Dreams are tickets

through the longest night.

If I could

I'd steal from time

every summer that we ran through

every Sunday we slept in

each May morning we imagined

God has made for our eyes only.

Then I'd divide them all by two

keeping half,and giving half to you.

If I had my half of all those summers

to thumb through

maybe the keeper of dreams

would help me dream up

all the other seasons.

The keeper of dreams.

The lender of hope.

Wherever he is,

he'd better come here soon

to hold me every bit as hard

as he's held back the dream.

~ Rod McKuen

[Julia A Knaake]

EXCELSIOR

I celebrate your eyes

because they looked at me

without restraint or shame.

 

I celebrate your breasts

in the darkest night

I could find them blind

and feeble.

 

I celebrate your tears

even if they cry for something

that I’ve done.

 

I celebrate you

playing shuffleboard

or tennis

or playing with my balls

while I sleep. I

 

celebrate

all the night sounds

that you make

but won’t admit to

your conversations with yourself

in sleep.

 

Most of all

I celebrate the God

that gave me you

and asked for nothing

in return.

- From "Love’s Been Good To Me," 1978 ...Rod McKuen

[Daddieo]

I look at them...

...Our children

Separate and strong

And with more power against us 

Than any God...

 

The conflict is...

That we compare them...

To each other

...and to ourselves

 

But they are separate

...They are not the same

They are not us...

And...

They are not ours...

 

We transfer to them

All that we wished for ourselves

So it is we...

That are bound to them

En route to ourselves

 

Let's let them be...

Less like we are

And more like themselves...

Then...maybe

That will set us all free

From trying to be different

Than we are...

 

"A Step Problem" by Merrit Malloy

...from the book "Things I Meant To Say To You When We Were Old"

(photo of my daughter BrieAnna)

[Julia A Knaake]

very beautiful daughter 

and

a very beautiful poem

a new poet to me

of my 3 daughters only one chose to marry and have children

4 in all 2 boys

and

2 identical twin daughters

Brianna and Shannon

believe me right from the start my daughter said if you get them clothes they are not to be identical

the girls are now women married and each ave a child all through their growing up life they were individuals

....i am tired now

no way ever in my wildest dreams would I think our group would go from 5 to 23...what did I do

[Julia A Knaake]

I think Floral's poem, A Man Named Wayne, must be a very true story of you Wayne

[Julia A Knaake]

I was on Eons a long time but never heard of that group

I am glad she wrote the poem so we could read it here

[Julia A Knaake]

oh ok....did not belong  to private groups there

[Julia A Knaake]

Wayne, "I Saw Heaven Last Night" was written in 2008 so there is a reason you are still here on earth. Thanks.