Thursday and A Poem

[nightdog_barks]

Sunny and warm; thunder early this morning and a restless dog, but no rain. Repotted my viney philodendron (this guy) and the baby olive tree yesterday and planted a sprouting mango seed. Sadly, it looks like I'll need to either start some rosemary seeds or buy a new plant since the one we have couldn't take this Summer from Hell (despite being moved back inside).

New issue of Poetry came yesterday, so here's a poem from the American writer Brenda Shaughnessy. Line-spacing is correct, that's the way it is in the magazine.

Visitor

I am dreaming of a house just like this one

but larger and opener to the trees, nighter

than day and higher than noon, and you,

visiting, knocking to get in, hoping for icy

milk or hot tea or whatever it is you like.

For each night is a long drink in a short glass.

A drink of blacksound water, such a rush

and fall of lonesome no form can contain it.

And if it isn't night yet, though I seem to

recall that it is, then it is not for everyone.

Did you receive my invitation? It is not

for everyone. Please come to my house

lit by leaf light. It's like a book with bright

pages filled with flocks and glens and groves

and overlooked by Pan, that seductive satyr

in whom the fish is also cooked. A book that

took too long to read but minutes to unread --

that is -- to forget. Strange are the pages

thus. Nothing but the hope of company.

I made too much pie in expectation. I was

hoping to sit with you in a tree house in a

nightgown in a real way. Did you receive

my invitation? Written in haste, before

leaf blinked out, before the idea fully formed.

An idea like a storm cloud that does not spill

or arrive but moves silently in a direction.

Like a dark book in a long life with a vague

hope in a wood house with an open door.


~ Brenda Shaughnessy
From Poetry, September 2011



About to start making bread. :-)

Comments

[silverjackal]

Oh that is *spectacular*. Thank you for sharing it! :) Indeed, I know this dream house, for I have one very similar.

[nightdog_barks]

Isn't that nice? I loved the image of the house lit by "leaf light," and the repetition of the "Did you receive my invitation?" line. :-D

[silverjackal]

I particularly liked the house "larger and opener to the trees, nighter than day", the leaf light, and the book and the final sentence. It all makes perfect sense to me, something I've read before or always known, and therefore very true. :)

[(Anonymous)]

This poem strecthes my English kniwledge to its limit in a very good way.
Too bad I left my dw password back in Italy, and now have to run to do actual work.

When I had a garden I had a gorgeous rosemary. i never watered it, nor cared for it, and about half of it was in the shade, its roots in sandy soil where the neighbor's cat did everything cats do in sand. i just vollected some twigs when needed in the kitchen or just for smeeling pleasure. The dry, hot summers, subfreezing winters, autmun and springs full of rain and strong wind weren't a problem.
A weather that kills rosemary isn't fit for humans.

Have a wonderful day, Damigella

[nightdog_barks]

Hello Damigella! :-D

The most beautiful rosemary I have ever seen was when my husband and I stayed at this inn outside of Victoria, British Columbia. They had all kinds of herbs and flowers all over the grounds, and it took us a while to realize that the six-foot-tall giant bush outside our room was actually rosemary. Biggest specimen I have ever seen. Would that we could've lived there forever!

♥ ♥ ♥

[pwcorgigirl]

Oh, that is lovely, especially each night is a long drink in a short glass. And I love the idea of a treehouse in the woods.

[nightdog_barks]

That "long drink in a short glass" line needs to be in a fic. *g*

I loved these lines -- I was / hoping to sit with you in a tree house in a / nightgown in a real way.