Two Royal Weddings and a Poem

Photo By Mario Testino

April 29th is a GOOD DAY for a wedding. How do I know? Well, truth be told, 11 years to the day, I had my own fairytale.

In honor of weddings past and present, I have chosen a special poem to end our nod to National Poetry Month. I'll also be wearing my tiara all day, as any glamour gal would do for such an occasion.

Cheers!

LOVE ONE ANOTHER

Love one another, but make not a bond of love
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup, but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread, but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping;
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together yet not too near together;
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

By Khalil Gibran (aka Kahlil Jubran)

Goodbye April - This completes our homage to National Poetry Month!

New York, New York

Every once in a while, I miss my subway days.

There was always something happening there, underground.

I HEART NYC!!!

Where The Sidewalk Ends

Pavement Drawing by Julian Beever

Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

By Shel Silverstein

Hello April - It's National Poetry Month! Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing all things poetic here at Calendar Gal.

The Poetry of Yuri Zhivago - Boris Pasternak

Wind

I have died, but you are still among the living.

And the wind, keening and complaining,

Makes the country house and forest rock –

Not each pine by itself

But all the trees as one,

Together with the illimitable distance;

It makes them rock as the hulls of sailboats

Rock on the mirrorous waters of a boat basin.

And this the wind does not out of bravado

Or in a senseless rage,

But so that in its desolation

It may find words to fashion a lullaby for you.

Translated by Yakov Hornstein

“The Poems of Yuri Zhivago” from the novel, Doctor Zhivago

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (1890-1960)

The Giraffe by Nikolai Gumilev

Painting by Anne Weirich

 

The Giraffe

O, the look in your eyes this morning is more than usually sad,
With your little arms wrapped round your knees and body bent in half.
Let me tell you a story: far, far away, on the distant shores of Lake Chad,
There roams a most majestic giraffe
Blessed with a handsome build and graceful carriage
And a coat painted hypnotic, magical patterns,
With which none but the moon above dare compare
When her light falls down to be scattered and rocked on the waters,
Passing like a blazing sail far out at sea
As she runs by, nimble and carefree as a bird in flight.
I hear tell the earth has seen many wonderful things
When the giraffe hides herself away and the sun sets into night.
I know fabulous tales of far off, alien lands,
Of a dark maiden, of a young captain’s burning desire, all this I know,
But you’ve breathed in the damp marsh air for so long
You don’t want to believe in anything but the rain out your window.
I still haven’t told you about her tropic garden, with the slenderest palm trees,
The sweetest wildflowers, meadows of unbelievable grass . . .
Are you crying? Let me tell you a story: far away, on the distant shores of Lake Chad,
There roams a most majestic giraffe.

By Nikolai Gumilev/Translation by James Stotts

Hello April - It's National Poetry Month! Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing all things poetic here at Calendar Gal.

Dylan, Dylan, Sing To Me...

MR. TAMBOURINE MAN

Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.
Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand
Vanished from my hand
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.

Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it.

Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though you might hear laughin', spinnin' swingin' madly across the sun
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seein' that he's chasing.

Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

                                    By Bob Dylan

Hello April - It's National Poetry Month! Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing all things poetic here at Calendar Gal.

A Beautiful Sight - Underpass Graffiti Poem

Photo Credit: Ed O'Keeffe

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

By William Wordsworth (1807)

Hello April - It's National Poetry Month! Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing all things poetic here at Calendar Gal.

The Promise

New Year's Eve, NYC, 1965 by Joel Meyerowitz

THE PROMISE 

At the hour when words will not do

Promise me this

Nothing

Instead let your lips part on skin

Here and there

Softly

Along my brow

And cheek

Be

But speak not for these ears to hear

For one

Moment

Bite back on those little words that

Long to be

Free

At the bottom of your breath hold

Tight to them

And to me

                By Nancy Sima

Hello April - It's National Poetry Month! Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing all things poetic here at Calendar Gal.

Newspaper Blackout Poems by Austin Kleon

Austin Kleon ROCKS poetry!  



HEARD ON THE TITANIC

 

GOLDILOCKS

HOW TO BE A TEXAN



HOUSE IN TEXAS

Learn more abut Austin Kleon HERE and grab some inspiration HERE.


Hello April - It's National Poetry Month! Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing all things poetic here at Calendar Gal.

Hallelujah

Dear Mister Cohen - Mister Buckley,

You still have me, every time you play - hallelujah.

Signed,
Your biggest fan

hallelujah

i heard there was a secret chord
that david played and it pleased the lord
but you don't really care for music, do you
well it goes like this the fourth, the fifth
the minor fall and the major lift
the baffled king composing hallelujah

hallelujah...

well your faith was strong but you needed proof
you saw her bathing on the roof
her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
she tied you to her kitchen chair
she broke your throne and she cut your hair
and from your lips she drew the hallelujah

hallelujah...

baby i've been here before
i've seen this room and i've walked this floor
i used to live alone before i knew you
i've seen your flag on the marble arch
but love is not a victory march
it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

hallelujah...

well there was a time when you let me know
what's really going on below
but now you never show that to me do you
but remember when i moved in you
and the holy dove was moving too
and every breath we drew was hallelujah

well, maybe there's a god above
but all i've ever learned from love
was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
it's not a cry that you hear at night
it's not somebody who's seen the light
it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

hallelujah...

written by leonard cohen/sung by jeff buckley

Hello April - It's National Poetry Month! Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing all things poetic here at Calendar Gal.

 

Note to Self...

 Photo Credit: http://www.sweetonveg.com/2010/09/notetoself/

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

—Naomi Shihab Nye

Hello April - It's National Poetry Month! Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing all things poetic here at Calendar Gal.