Poetry thread

My all time favorite poem. There are many I like, but this is one that I try to live up to.

“If” by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-tos
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
 
My grandfather survived the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Wrote this one about the Yamaki pine bonsai that survived the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It was one of 53 trees gifted to the us in 1953 by Japan.

The Pining Bonsai

Locked in bonds of copper
Pruned to oriental taste
I move with the hands of my master
Grow at a miniscule rate

Age an illusion for many
Rings true beneath my bark
Outlasting through the ages
Forever set apart

Far from native shores
Uprooted from all that was mine
Surviving the ashes of war
A symbol of changing times

Dreams of reaching the heavens
Still creep from root to branch
Deep within my xylem
Echoes of forest enchant
 
This one is about a stone arrowhead I found on a client’s property near a creek. I showed them the point and they wanted to keep it. They are still my clients/friends.

Lost Point of Reference

On a steeply sloping berm I saw her
Resting near a brook
There was beauty in complexion
Symmetry to her curves

Filtered sunlight slipping through forrest leaves
Exposed her skin to me
Filled my mind with wonder
Stopped my heart with ease

Earth encompassed and root held fast
Preserved her virgin beauty
Till persistence of erosion
Released her from the past

A sinister kiss ever present on lips
Fashioned to pierce the heart
Yet no sinew, shaft, or feather
Remained within her midst

The heart overflowing with joyous tune
Caused my mouth to boast
And though I thought her love was mine
Our fate was sealed with doom
 
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Gunga Din
By Rudyard Kipling

You may talk o’ gin and beer
When you’re quartered safe out ’ere,
An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im that’s got it.
Now in Injia’s sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin’ of ’Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them blackfaced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din,
He was ‘Din! Din! Din!
‘You limpin’ lump o’ brick-dust, Gunga Din!
‘Hi! Slippy hitherao
‘Water, get it! Panee lao,
‘You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din.’

The uniform ’e wore
Was nothin’ much before,
An’ rather less than ’arf o’ that be’ind,
For a piece o’ twisty rag
An’ a goatskin water-bag
Was all the field-equipment ’e could find.
When the sweatin’ troop-train lay
In a sidin’ through the day,
Where the ’eat would make your bloomin’ eyebrows crawl,
We shouted ‘Harry By!’
Till our throats were bricky-dry,
Then we wopped ’im ’cause ’e couldn’t serve us all.
It was ‘Din! Din! Din!
‘You ’eathen, where the mischief ’ave you been?
‘You put some juldee in it
‘Or I’ll marrow you this minute
‘If you don’t fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!’

’E would dot an’ carry one
Till the longest day was done;
An’ ’e didn’t seem to know the use o’ fear.
If we charged or broke or cut,
You could bet your bloomin’ nut,
’E’d be waitin’ fifty paces right flank rear.
With ’is mussick on ’is back,
’E would skip with our attack,
An’ watch us till the bugles made 'Retire,’
An’ for all ’is dirty ’ide
’E was white, clear white, inside
When ’e went to tend the wounded under fire!
It was ‘Din! Din! Din!’
With the bullets kickin’ dust-spots on the green.
When the cartridges ran out,
You could hear the front-ranks shout,
‘Hi! ammunition-mules an' Gunga Din!’

I shan’t forgit the night
When I dropped be’ind the fight
With a bullet where my belt-plate should ’a’ been.
I was chokin’ mad with thirst,
An’ the man that spied me first
Was our good old grinnin’, gruntin’ Gunga Din.
’E lifted up my ’ead,
An’ he plugged me where I bled,
An’ ’e guv me ’arf-a-pint o’ water green.
It was crawlin’ and it stunk,
But of all the drinks I’ve drunk,
I’m gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.
It was 'Din! Din! Din!
‘’Ere’s a beggar with a bullet through ’is spleen;
‘’E's chawin’ up the ground,
‘An’ ’e’s kickin’ all around:
‘For Gawd’s sake git the water, Gunga Din!’

’E carried me away
To where a dooli lay,
An’ a bullet come an’ drilled the beggar clean.
’E put me safe inside,
An’ just before ’e died,
'I ’ope you liked your drink,’ sez Gunga Din.
So I’ll meet ’im later on
At the place where ’e is gone—
Where it’s always double drill and no canteen.
’E’ll be squattin’ on the coals
Givin’ drink to poor damned souls,
An’ I’ll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
Yes, Din! Din! Din!
You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,
By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

This is another of my favorites, discovered courtesy of an episode of M.A.S.H., where Hawkeye quotes a line from the poem. That line had such power I had to look up the poem, and have since memorized much of it.
 
Tom Dunlap said:
I bought a book of all of Robert Frosts poems. He has a lot of tree poems
Click to expand...
This is a hard read

There are so many others that show that frost was very much a tree lovers

www.poetryfoundation.org

‘Out, Out—’

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled, As it ran light, or had to bear a load. His sister stood beside him in her apron To tell them…
www.poetryfoundation.org www.poetryfoundation.org
 
Tom Dunlap said:
This is a hard read

There are so many others that show that frost was very much a tree lovers

www.poetryfoundation.org

‘Out, Out—’

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled, As it ran light, or had to bear a load. His sister stood beside him in her apron To tell them…
www.poetryfoundation.org www.poetryfoundation.org
Click to expand...
That’s a wild one! When I read the first couple of stanzas I was thinking I really like when Frost writes about his yard. There are a few. People write the best on their home ground.

Not an actual sentimental bone in Frost’s body despite him being the icon of New England days and ways gone by. The New England melancholy yes, but that’s something else, it’s not nostalgia. This poem proves it. Thx Tom!
-AJ
 
This is my favorite poem at the moment

Small Kindnesses by Danusha Laméris

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by.

Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.

And sometimes, when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up.

Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.

We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot, and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile at them and for them to smile back.

For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.

We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.

What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”
 
Another one by Danusha Laméris called Feeding the Worms

Ever since I found out that earth worms have taste buds
all over the delicate pink strings of their bodies,
I pause dropping apple peels into the compost bin, imagine
the dark, writhing ecstasy, the sweetness of apples
permeating their pores. I offer beets and parsley,
avocado, and melon, the feathery tops of carrots.

I’d always thought theirs a menial life, eyeless and hidden,
almost vulgar—though now, it seems, they bear a pleasure
so sublime, so decadent, I want to contribute however I can,
forgetting, a moment, my place on the menu.
 
The More Loving One by W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
 
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