Waking Slow

My photography and not-my poetry.

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The Four Seasons poetry collection by Everyman's Library Pocket Books

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Fern Hill

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green, The night above the dingle starry, Time let me hail and climb Golden in the heydays of his eyes, And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves Trail with daisies and barley Down the rivers of the windfall light. And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home, In the sun that is young once only, Time let me play and be Golden in the mercy of his means, And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold, And the sabbath rang slowly In the pebbles of the holy streams. All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air And playing, lovely and watery And fire green as grass. And nightly under the simple stars As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away, All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars Flying with the ricks, and the horses Flashing into the dark. And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all Shining, it was Adam and maiden, The sky gathered again And the sun grew round that very day. So it must have been after the birth of the simple light In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm Out of the whinnying green stable On to the fields of praise. And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long, In the sun born over and over, I ran my heedless ways, My wishes raced through the house high hay And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs Before the children green and golden Follow him out of grace. Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand, In the moon that is always rising, Nor that riding to sleep I should hear him fly with the high fields And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land. Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea. (Dylan Thomas)

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Pink flowers in the Riverside Cemetery.

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Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.

I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. I say, It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so much But they can’t touch My inner mystery. When I try to show them They say they still can’t see. I say, It’s in the arch of my back, The sun of my smile, The ride of my breasts, The grace of my style. I’m a woman

Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.

Now you understand Just why my head’s not bowed. I don’t shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing It ought to make you proud. I say, It’s in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need of my care, ‘Cause I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.

(Maya Angelou)

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Returning to Songshan Mountain

The limpid river runs between the bushes, The horse and cart are moving idly on. The water flows as if with a mind of its own, At dusk, the birds return to perch together. The desolate town is faced by an ancient ferry, The setting sun now fills the autumn hills. And far below high Songshan’s tumbling ridges, Returning home, I close the door for now.. (Wang Wei)

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Disappearance

The leaf tips bend under the weight of dew. Fruits are ripening in Earth’s early morning. Daffodils light up in the sun. The curtain of cloud at the gateway of the garden path begins to shift: have pity for childhood, the way of illusion. Late at night, the candle gutters. In some distant desert, a flower opens. And somewhere else, a cold aster that never knew a cassava patch or gardens of areca palms, never knew the joy of life, at that instant disappears- man’s eternal yearning. (Thich Nhat Hahn)

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Clark University in the spring.

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Detail of monument dedicated to the graduates of Yale University who gave their lives in the service of their country. New Haven, CT.

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Wachusett Reservoir, Massachusetts.

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Bancroft Tower in the rain. Worcester, MA.

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American Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, PA.

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What Is Life?

Resembles Life what once was held of Light, Too ample in itself for human sight ? An absolute Self–an element ungrounded– All, that we see, all colours of all shade By encroach of darkness made ?– Is very life by consciousness unbounded ? And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath, A war-embrace of wrestling Life and Death ? (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

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Beluga whales. Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut.

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Whales Weep Not!

They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent. All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urge on and on, and dive beneath the icebergs. The right whales, the sperm-whales, the hammer-heads, the killers there they blow, there they blow, hot wild white breath out of the sea! And they rock, and they rock, through the sensual ageless ages on the depths of the seven seas, and through the salt they reel with drunk delight and in the tropics tremble they with love and roll with massive, strong desire, like gods. Then the great bull lies up against his bride in the blue deep of the sea as mountain pressing on mountain, in the zest of life: and out of the inward roaring of the inner red ocean of whale blood the long tip reaches strong, intense, like the maelstrom-tip, and comes to rest in the clasp and the soft, wild clutch of a she-whale's fathomless body. And over the bridge of the whale's strong phallus, linking the wonder of whales the burning archangels under the sea keep passing, back and forth, keep passing archangels of bliss from him to her, from her to him, great Cherubim that wait on whales in mid-ocean, suspended in the waves of the sea great heaven of whales in the waters, old hierarchies. And enormous mother whales lie dreaming suckling their whale-tender young and dreaming with strange whale eyes wide open in the waters of the beginning and the end. And bull-whales gather their women and whale-calves in a ring when danger threatens, on the surface of the ceaseless flood and range themselves like great fierce Seraphim facing the threat encircling their huddled monsters of love. and all this happiness in the sea, in the salt where God is also love, but without words: and Aphrodite is the wife of whales most happy, happy she! and Venus among the fishes skips and is a she-dolphin she is the gay, delighted porpoise sporting with love and the sea she is the female tunny-fish, round and happy among the males and dense with happy blood, dark rainbow bliss in the sea. (D. H. Lawrence)

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While yet we wait for spring, and from the dry

While yet we wait for spring, and from the dry And blackening east that so embitters March, Well-housed must watch grey fields and meadows parch, And driven dust and withering snowflake fly; Already in glimpses of the tarnish'd sky The sun is warm and beckons to the larch, And where the covert hazels interarch Their tassell'd twigs, fair beds of primrose lie. Beneath the crisp and wintry carpet hid A million buds but stay their blossoming; And trustful birds have built their nests amid The shuddering boughs, and only wait to sing Till one soft shower from the south shall bid, And hither tempt the pilgrim steps of spring. (Robert Seymour Bridges)

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The Women's Table at Yale University. http://www.yale.edu/womenatyale/WomensTable.html New Haven, CT.

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From time to time The clouds give rest To the moon-beholders. (Bashō)