Evening Poetry

Evening Poetry, June 2

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From Rilke’s Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke

I love you, gentlest of Ways,

who ripened us as we wrestled with you.

You, the great homesickness we could never shake off,

you, the forest that always surrounded us,

you, the song we sang in every silence,

you dark net threading through us,

You began yourself so greatly

on that day when you began us—

and we have so ripened in your sunlight,

spreading far and firmly planted–

that now in all people, angels, madonnas,

you can decide: the work is done.

Let your hand rest on the rim of Heaven now

and mutely bear the darkness we bring over you.

I, 25

Evening Poetry, June 1

Kim2 Comments

Morning

by Emily Dickinson

Will there really be a morning?

Is there such a thing as day?

Could I see it from the mountains

If I were as tall as they?

Has it feet like water-lilies?

Has it feathers like a bird?

Is it brought from famous countries

Of which I have never heard?

Oh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor!

Oh, some wise man from the skies!

Please to tell a little pilgrim

Where the place called morning lies.

You can find this poem in Favorite Poems Old and New selected by Helen Ferris.

Evening Poetry, May 30

KimLeave a comment

Setting The Table

by Dorothy Aldis

Evenings

When the house is quiet

I delight

To spread the white

Smooth cloth and put the flower on the table.

I place the knives and forks around

Without a sound.

I light the candles.

I love to see

Their small reflected torches shine

Against the greenness of the vine

And garden.

Is that the mignonette, I wonder,

Smells so sweet?

And then I call them in to eat.

You can find this poem in Favorite Poems Old and New.

Evening Poetry, May 29

KimLeave a comment

A Birthday

by Christina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird
                  Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
                  Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
                  That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
                  Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
                  Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
                  And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
                  In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
                  Is come, my love is come to me.

You can find this poem in The Complete Poems by Christina Rossetti.

Evening Poetry, May 28

Kim1 Comment

Ironing Grandmother’s Tablecloth

by Jane Kenyon

As a bride, you made it smooth,

pulling the edges straight, the corners square.

For years you went over the same piece

of cloth, the way Grandfather walked to work.

This morning, I move the iron across the damask,

back and forth, up and down. You are ninety-four.

Each day you dress yourself, then go back to bed

and listen to radio sermons, staring at the ceiling.

When I visit, you tell me your troubles:

how my father left poisoned grapefruit on the back

porch at Christmas, how somebody comes at night

to throw stones at the house.

The streets of your brain become smaller,

old houses torn down. Talking to me

is hard work, keeping things straight,

whose child I am, whether I have children.

You can find this poem in the collection Otherwise by Jane Kenyon.

Evening Poetry, May 27

KimLeave a comment

May

by Christina Rossetti

I cannot tell you how it was;

But this I know: it came to pass

Upon a bright and breezy day

When May was young; ah, pleasant May!

As yet the poppies were not born

Between the blades of tender corn;

The last eggs had not hatched as yet,

Nor any bird foregone its mate.

I cannot tell you what it was;

But this I know: it did but pass.

It passed away with sunny May,

With all sweet things it passed away,

And left me old, and cold, and grey.

You can find this poem in Rossetti: Poems.

Evening Poetry, May 26

KimLeave a comment

This poem can be found in The Book of a Monastic Life in Rilke’s Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Only as a child am I awake

and able to trust

that after every fear and every night

I will behold you again.

However often I get lost,

however far my thinking strays,

I know you will be here, right here,

time trembling around you.

To me it is as if I were at once

infant, boy, man, and more.

I feel that only as it circles

is abundance found.

I thank you, deep power

that works me ever more lightly

in ways I can’t make out.

The day’s labor grows simple now,

and like a holy face

held in my dark hands.

I, 62

Evening Poetry, May 25

KimLeave a comment

Otherwise

by Jane Kenyon

I got out of bed

on two strong legs.

It might have been

otherwise. I ate

cereal, sweet

milk, ripe, flawless

peach. It might

have been otherwise.

I took the dog uphill

to the birch wood.

All morning I did

the work I love.

At noon I lay down

with my mate. It might

have been otherwise.

We ate dinner together

at a table with silver

candlesticks. It might

have been otherwise.

I slept in a bed

in a room with paintings

on the walls, and

planned another day

just like this day.

But one day, I know,

it will be otherwise.

You can find this poem in the collection Otherwise by Jane Kenyon.

Evening Poetry, May 24

KimLeave a comment

A Prayer in Spring

by Robert Frost

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;

And give us no to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,

Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;

And make us happy in the happy bees,

The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird

That suddenly above the bees is heard,

The meteor that thrusts in the needle bill,

And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,

The which it is reserved for God above

To sanctify to what far ends He will,

But which it only needs that we fulfill.

You can find this poem in Robert Frost: Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays.

Evening Poetry, May 23

KimLeave a comment

Let Evening Come

by Jane Kenyon

Let the light of late afternoon

shine through chinks in the barn, moving

up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing

as a woman takes up her needles

and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned

in long grass. Let the stars appear

and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.

Let the wind die down. Let the shed

go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop

in the oats, to air in the lung

let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t

be afraid. God does not leave us

comfortless, so let evening come.

This poem can be found in Otherwise by Jane Kenyon.