Carin's Poetry Corner

MY NOVEMBER GUEST

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

~ Robert Frost

YOU WERE HERE
As I sit in those moments of quiet,
When sadness invades me,
I know that yesterday,
You were here.

Now you are away from us,
Not knowing your future,
Or when you'll come home, but yesterday,
You were here.

It has now been a week,
A week since you last were in the house,
An entire week since we carried you away,
To the place where we did not know your future,
But just last week,
You were here.

Another day passes;
a week ago, you were still with us,
In daily reports from the clinic,
They did not know your future,
But we could still hope, and,
You were here.

More days pass,;
A week ago you left us,
Your head cradled in our hands,
Your spirit gracefully moving upward,
But for a few hours of that day,
You were here.

Sadness invades again,
As I know that once those hours pass,
I can no longer look back,
Over the span of a familiar week's time,
To find that comforting point when,
You were here.

More time will pass;
Sadness will not so much invade as menace,
And I will mark the days,
Saying things like,
"last month, last summer,
last Halloween, last year,"
You were here.

I dread that day,
One year from now,
That first marking of the time,
That your body was no longer with us;
Though we will never forget you,
Your tangible memory fades,
The feel of your fur, your head, your back,
your weight against us,
The smell and sounds of you when,
You were here.

The emptiness is beginning to fade,
To change into another reality,
One with you still playing a part,
But a role of ethereal presence
rather than physical comfort we crave;
Your memory, your spirit, your essence and counsel,
Dwell with us, but this feeling is not the same as when,
You were here.

~ Jenine Stanley

These are my favorites...
MY NOVEMBER GUEST My Sorrow, when she's here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane. Her pleasure will not let me stay. She talks and I am fain to list: She's glad the birds are gone away, She's glad her simple worsted grey Is silver now with clinging mist. The desolate, deserted trees, The faded earth, the heavy sky, The beauties she so truly sees, She thinks I have no eye for these, And vexes me for reason why. Not yesterday I learned to know The love of bare November days Before the coming of the snow, But it were vain to tell her so, And they are better for her praise. ~ Robert Frost			HER KIND I have gone out, a possessed witch haunting the black air, braver at night; dreaming evil, I have done my hitch over the plain houses, light by light: lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind. I have found the warm caves in the woods, filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves, closets, silks, innumerable goods; fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves: whining, rearranging the disalign. A woman like that is misunderstood. I have been her kind. I have ridden in your cart, driver, waved my nude arms at villages going by, learning the last bright routes, survivor where your flames still bite my thigh and my ribs crack where your wheels wind. A woman like that is not ashamed to die. I have been her kind. ~ Anne Sexton
TONIGHT I CAN WRITE THE SADDEST LINES Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, "The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance." The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I held her in my arms. I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes? Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her? The night is shattered and she is not with me. This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight searches for her as though to go to her. My heart looks for her, and she is not with me. The same night whitening the same trees. We, of that time, are no longer the same. I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing. Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before. Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her. ~ Pablo Neruda THE HOUSE DOG'S GRAVE I’ve changed my ways a little; I cannot now Run with you in the evenings along the shore, Except in a kind of dream; and you, If you dream a moment, You see me there. So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door Where I used to scratch to go out or in, And you’d soon open; leave on the kitchen floor The marks of my drinking-pan. I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do On the warm stone, Nor at the foot of your bed; no, All the nights through I lie alone. But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet Outside your window where firelight so often plays, And where you sit to read And I fear often grieving for me Every night your lamplight lies on my place. You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard To think of you ever dying. A little dog would get tired, living so long. I hope that when you are lying Under the ground like me your lives will appear As good and joyful as mine. No, dears, that’s too much hope: You are not so well cared for as I have been. And never have known the passionate undivided Fidelities that I knew. Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided... But to me you were true. You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend. I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures To the end and far past the end. If this is my end, I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours. ~ Robinson Jeffers			TAUGHT ME PURPLE My mother taught me purple Although she never wore it. Wash-gray was her circle, The tenement her orbit. My mother taught me golden And held me up to see it, Above the broken molding, Beyond the filthy street. My mother reached for beauty And for its lack she died, Who knew so much of duty She could not teach me pride. ~ Evelyn Tooley Hunt
			YOU WERE HERE As I sit in those moments of quiet, When sadness invades me, I know that yesterday, You were here. Now you are away from us, Not knowing your future, Or when you'll come home, but yesterday, You were here. It has now been a week, A week since you last were in the house, An entire week since we carried you away, To the place where we did not know your future, But just last week, You were here. Another day passes; a week ago, you were still with us, In daily reports from the clinic, They did not know your future, But we could still hope, and, You were here. More days pass,; A week ago you left us, Your head cradled in our hands, Your spirit gracefully moving upward, But for a few hours of that day, You were here. Sadness invades again, As I know that once those hours pass, I can no longer look back, Over the span of a familiar week's time, To find that comforting point when, You were here. More time will pass; Sadness will not so much invade as menace, And I will mark the days, Saying things like, "last month, last summer, last Halloween, last year," You were here. I dread that day, One year from now, That first marking of the time, That your body was no longer with us; Though we will never forget you, Your tangible memory fades, The feel of your fur, your head, your back, your weight against us, The smell and sounds of you when, You were here. The emptiness is beginning to fade, To change into another reality, One with you still playing a part, But a role of ethereal presence rather than physical comfort we crave; Your memory, your spirit, your essence and counsel, Dwell with us, but this feeling is not the same as when, You were here. ~ Jenine Stanley

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