#phillip larkin

[peaceofheartt]

the trees, by phillip larkin

[littlesouljournal]

[loosejournal]

The Mower by Phillip Larkin

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found A hedgehog jammed up against the blades, Killed. It had been in the long grass. I had seen it before, and even fed it, once. Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world Unmendably. Burial was no help: Next morning I got up and it did not. The first day after a death, the new absence Is always the same; we should be careful Of each other, we should be kind While there is still time.

[rini-descartes]

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."

— Oscar Wilde

[strangerstarsandlands]

Contemplating a second lonely Spring 

Auf der Waldwiese Blumen pflücken (1878) by Hans Thoma

“The Trees” by Phillip Larkin

At the Edge of the Woods by Charles Courtney Curran

Green Wheat Fields by Vincent Van Gogh 

from “Louise Glück’s Metamorphoses” by David Orr

Spring at Chatou by Pierre-Auguste Renoir 

from  “Grief In Greenness: Two Melancholy Poems Of Spring” by David Orr

River by Maurice Buchin (1818-1893)

“South London Forever” by Florence + The Machine 

Promeneuse dans la clairière by Emile Bernard (1868-1941)

[anamneticprescience]

Visit Original Link

Church Going

Once I am sure there's nothing going on I step inside, letting the door thud shut. Another church: matting, seats, and stone, And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff Up at the holy end; the small neat organ; And a tense, musty, unignorable silence, Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

Move forward, run my hand around the font. From where I stand, the roof looks almost new- Cleaned or restored? Someone would know: I don't. Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce "Here endeth" much more loudly than I'd meant. The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence, Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do, And always end much at a loss like this, Wondering what to look for; wondering, too, When churches fall completely out of use What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep A few cathedrals chronically on show, Their parchment, plate, and pyx in locked cases, And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep. Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come To make their children touch a particular stone; Pick simples for a cancer; or on some Advised night see walking a dead one? Power of some sort or other will go on In games, in riddles, seemingly at random; But superstition, like belief, must die, And what remains when disbelief has gone? Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognizable each week, A purpose more obscure. I wonder who Will be the last, the very last, to seek This place for what it was; one of the crew That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were? Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique, Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh? Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt So long and equably what since is found Only in separation – marriage, and birth, And death, and thoughts of these – for whom was built This special shell? For, though I've no idea What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth, It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is, In whose blent air all our compulsions meet, Are recognised, and robed as destinies. And that much never can be obsolete, Since someone will forever be surprising A hunger in himself to be more serious, And gravitating with it to this ground, Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in, If only that so many dead lie round.

[splendidemendax]

connections that occured to me while watching tonight's episode of doctor who:

doctor who to also doctor who: "nice to meet you dan! run for your life" → "nice to meet you rose! run for your life" obv

doctor who to other sci fi pt. 1: the way they depicted the flux dissolving planets looked a lot like the destruction of vulcan in star trek 2009. the color palette, the way things kinda crumbled and imploded rather than exploding...

doctor who to other sci fi pt. 2: the bit with the lupari (sp?) ships coming together totally reminded me of guardians of the galaxy, mostly bc that scene makes me cry every time and i think about it a lot (bc doomed teamwork Gets Me)

doctor who to the random shit that lives in my brain: dan said something along the lines of "what's the point of being alive if it's not to make others happy?" and that totally made me think of philip larkin's "days" (emphasis mine):

What are days for? Days are where we live. They come, they wake us Time and time over. They are to be happy in: Where can we live but days? Ah, solving that question Brings the priest and the doctor In their long coats Running over the fields.

[apocryphics]

Phillip Larkin