post poems, quotes and songs I love

I wonder about the trees.
Why do we wish to bear
Forever the noise of these
More than another noise
So close to our dwelling place?
We suffer them by the day
Till we lose all measure of pace,
And fixity in our joys,
And acquire a listening air.
They are that that talks of going
But never gets away;
And that talks no less for knowing,
As it grows wiser and older,
That now it means to stay.
My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder
Sometimes when I watch trees sway,
From the window or the door.
I shall set forth for somewhere,
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I shall be gone.

~Robert Frost

You will skip rope with me together here
You will eat a rice ball together here
I promise love to you here
When you watch sky, eyes are bluer
Your back will be stained with a mugwort color
Let’s learn the name of the constellation together

You will imagine all creatures together here with me
You will gather shellfish at low tide together here with me

At dawn, I will fetch a small starfish from the sea
I let go of a starfish by the breakfast
You will wait for it to be night with me

I repeat “I returned home”
You repeat “welcome home”
I will return to here again and again
You will drink hot tea here with me
You sit down together here and will be exposed to soft breeze for a while with me.

~Shuntaro Tanikawa

This was the poem calligraphed on the back of the fan a friend gave me the other day.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

It was a weird trip
I asked you to come with me
We drove for hours and hours
Listening to songs
We both claimed as ours

Singing along
Even though we should never go near
American idol

Having coke
And coffee just to stay up
Taking pictures at every pit stop
Just because that’s what you love

With your huge smile
I couldn’t resist
To smirk every now and then

You said the cute little things
That I find so funny
Every time the silence of a finishing track
Came upon

And with every twilight and dawn
We shared a kiss
Because the romance was just so strong

Every time I asked if you missed home
You looked at me and said
Why would I
When any place with you
Is what you’re asking if I’m missing

Not a moment was filled with apathy
Oh the things you do
This is the best escape
And I wish it would just last and last

I pulled up to the gate
You looked at me dazed
You asked me where we were
And I told you I had to show you
What this whole trip was about

So we got to the asylum
And there it was
That crazy little thing called love

I’ll be home for Christmas;
You can count on me.
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree.

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love-light gleams.
I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.

I won’t post the whole thing here, but a link instead. Go and read it. Read it again. It gets me every time. I’m tearing up a little now just thinking about it…
Merry Christmas!

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
so dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

~ Robert Frost

And this one, because I always thought he was singing it to me since he and I were the only brown eyes in a family of blue eyes…

Beautiful beautiful brown eyes
Beautiful beautiful brown eyes
Beautiful beautiful brown eyes
I’ll never love blue eyes again.

Last night I staggered in the bar room
Fell right down on the floor
These were the words that I uttered
I’ll never get drunk anymore.

Oh Willie oh Willie I love you
Love you with all of my heart
Tomorrow we were to be married
But liquor has kept us apart.

For seven long years I’ve been married
Wish I was single again
A girl doesn’t know half her troubles
Until she has married a man.

This is one of the folk songs my dad would croon to us when we were little. Maybe it’s not exactly appropriate but I’ve been humming songs I associate with him all week and this one makes me smile a little and cry a little, remembering the way he used to sing it. My dad would have been 72 today.

We come on the sloop John B
My grandfather and me
Around Nassau town we did roam
Drinking all night
Got into a fight
Well I feel so broke up
I want to go home

So hoist up the John B’s sail
See how the mainsail sets
Call for the Captain ashore
Let me go home, let me go home
I wanna go home, yeah yeah
Well I feel so broke up
I wanna go home

The first mate he got drunk
And broke in the Cap’n’s trunk
The constable had to come and take him away
Sheriff John Stone
Why don’t you leave me alone, yeah yeah
Well I feel so broke up I wanna go home

So hoist up the John B’s sail
See how the mainsail sets
Call for the Captain ashore
Let me go home, let me go home
I wanna go home, let me go home
Why don’t you let me go home
(Hoist up the John B’s sail)
Hoist up the John B
I feel so broke up I wanna go home
Let me go home

The poor cook he caught the fits
And threw away all my grits
And then he took and he ate up all of my corn
Let me go home
Why don’t they let me go home
This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on

So hoist up the John B’s sail
See how the mainsail sets
Call for the Captain ashore
Let me go home, let me go home
I wanna go home, let me go home
Why don’t you let me go home

Morning has broken, like the first morning.
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird.
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning,
Praise for them springing fresh from the world.

Sweet the rain’s new fall, sunlit from heaven.
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass.
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden,
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass.

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning.
Born of the one light Eden saw play.
Praise with elation, praise every morning;
God’s recreation of the new day.

Morning has broken, like the first morning.
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird.
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning,
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word.