Posted on December 4, 2008
Filed Under Mundane, Poems | Comments Off
I’m bad at poetry.
I bought Lissa Schneckenburger’s CD of the same name and began playing it frequently. One of the songs, “The Irish Girl,” has the chorus
Let the wind blow high and low my boys let the seas run mountains high
It is the seamen’s duty the helm to stand by
After a month or two–maybe three–I realized that the narrator need not be any kind of sailor. In fact, the chorus can be understood as a straightforward analogy: that the lover should not abandon his love no matter what treatment he gets. All that time I had taken the chorus to be merely some phrases to conjure a general sense of lonely, desolate resolution. I’m sure this connotation is entirely appropriate, but I don’t know why I missed the more direct bearing the chorus had on the whole point of the song.
I’ll also confess that I had trouble at first with “The first time that I saw my love I was sick and feeling bad,” because, clearly, the first time that he saw his love he was out roving, not lying on his death bed. I got over that a little quicker, though.
Hey–maybe she wasn’t really wearing a golden dress!
Posted on December 2, 2008
Filed Under Poems | Comments Off
O Father!
Darkness all around
Unrevealing night,
And a tumult of orange fire
A mother holds her children.
This too will pass—but when?
The man on a white horse
Rides into the night.
He must go first.
Will he return?
How long?
O Father! The chariots of Israel
And their horsemen!
11/1/2007
Posted on January 14, 2008
Filed Under Poems | Comments Off
As She Moved Through the Fair
My love said to me,
My Mother won’t mind
And me Father won’t slight you
For your lack of kind.
Then she stepped away from me
And this she did say:
It will not be long, love,
Till our wedding day.
She stepped away from me
And she moved through the fair
And fondly I watched her
Move here and move there.
And she went her way homeward
With one star awake,
As the swans in the evening
Move over the lake.
The people were saying,
No two e’er were wed
But one has a sorrow
That never was said.
And she smiled as she passed me
With her goods and her gear
And that was the last
That I saw of my dear.
I dreamed it last night
That my true love came in;
So softly she entered
Her feet made no din.
She came close beside me
And this she did say:
It will not be long, love,
Till our wedding day.
Unlike all other poems posted thus far, this is not my own. I know of it through Loreena McKennit’s arrangment.
Posted on November 20, 2007
Filed Under Poems | Comments Off
Echoes of Pain
The silent strain in your eyes,
The anticipated blow—
Tis the choking grief that ties.
You feel the hurt I know.
Loud thunders of a grief unheard
Crossing the rift between us gain
Volume which canst the heavens gird—
Echoes of pain.
Rain from clouded gaze
Not else can see nor say—
When alone the hand still stays
Not else can feel or pray
But echoes of pain
Echoes of pain
At this our own hope’s breaking
Love will us forever train
By grace to share in suffering
Echoes of pain
6/22/2004
keep looking »