Advent Calendar Day 22

Today I have a poem by one of my favorite poets, Amy Lowell.

Actually, this is just a fragment from the poem, which is beautiful, solemn, but maybe just a little too poignant for my mood today. It's titled "On Christmas Eve."

From On Christmas Eve

Sitting here on this Christmas Eve,

I think of you asleep above,

And the house has a gentleness which clings,

And a wide content of love.

What you have said and what you have done,

I should not have known enough to seek them,

But now the very rooms you leave

Have a peace which hangs like a hyacinth scent

All about them.

Your ways, your thoughts,

I would surely rather lose the sun

Than be without them.

Advent Calendar Day 14

 Good morning and welcome to another chilly and cloudy Monday in December. Only 11 days till Christmas. I still can't believe this year is nearly over. Not that I'm not happy to see it go. I have high hopes for 2021, and I'm guessing you do too. 

We have a brand new contributor to the Advent Calendar this morning. Terry Wylis, who you may know from novels like Kissing Sherlock Holmes and Solitude & Sea Glass written with T.D. McKcKinney--or from just hanging out with the gang on Facebook. 

Terry is sharing her lovely art and poetry with us.

Christmas Is...

The smell of pine and gingerbread,

The warmth of fire's glow;

A moment of affection shared

Beneath the mistletoe;

A diamond-fall of snowflakes

That carry their own light;

Sweet reverence for the tiny Child

Born on that holy night;

Searching for that special gift

That shows how much you care;

Voices singing joyfully

The carols held so dear;

A bond with friends and family

The love held in our hearts;

The little things filled with the joy

That Christmastime imparts.

1995

Terry has offered to mail that wonderful little twilight scene to one lucky commenter. Share what Christmas is to you and I'll randomly select from the responses below. 

Happy St. Paddy's!

It's a quiet day today. We are, er, Celebrating in Place. ;-)  I'll be working, the SO is playing his favorite Irish bands and bringing me Irish coffees when he thinks of it (one more coffee and I won't be sleeping for a month).

I'll just leave it with this very lovely poem by one of Ireland's most famous poets, William Butler Yeats.

Lake Isle of Innisfree

 I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

Advent Calendar - Day 19

I am really, really, REALLY hoping I don't get sick for the holidays. The SO is now fully flu-ish (DIDN'T WE JUST GO THROUGH THIS TWO MONTHS AGO??) and my tonsils are sore (I think it's more fear and imagination than actual germs in my case).

Anyway, today we have a poem from one of my absolute favorite poets, Sara Teasdale. Teasdale's work is romantic and emotional and not exactly what one would call timely--except that some things never change. Things that by now should have changed. Things that we should perhaps think about occasionally--especially during this season--when so much of our online time is spent, credit card in hand.

A Winter Night

Sara Teasdale

My window-pane is starred with frost,

The world is bitter cold to-night,

The moon is cruel, and the wind

Is like a two-edged sword to smite.

God pity all the homeless ones,

The beggars pacing to and fro.

God pity all the poor to-night

Who walk the lamp-lit streets of snow.

My room is like a bit of June,

Warm and close-curtained fold on fold,

But somewhere, like a homeless child,

My heart is crying in the cold.

Advent Calendar Day 10

Tonight is the final night of Chanukah, so I thought perhaps it would be appropriate to share this little jewel of a poem by Mark Strand.

The Coming of the Light

Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.

Advent Calendar Day 28

This morning we have another poem for you. This is by Margaret Avison, a new-to-me Canadian poet. For me this lovely work of imagery paints the gorgeous beginning of a mystery novel, but of course that was not Avison's intent. ;-)

New Year's Poem
  

By Margaret Avison

The Christmas twigs crispen and needles rattle

Along the window-ledge.

             A solitary pearl

Shed from the necklace spilled at last week’s party

Lies in the suety, snow-luminous plainness

Of morning, on the window-ledge beside them.  

And all the furniture that circled stately

And hospitable when these rooms were brimmed

With perfumes, furs, and black-and-silver

Crisscross of seasonal conversation, lapses

Into its previous largeness.

             I remember  

Anne’s rose-sweet gravity, and the stiff grave

Where cold so little can contain;

I mark the queer delightful skull and crossbones

Starlings and sparrows left, taking the crust,

And the long loop of winter wind

Smoothing its arc from dark Arcturus down

To the bricked corner of the drifted courtyard,

And the still window-ledge.

             Gentle and just pleasure

It is, being human, to have won from space

This unchill, habitable interior

Which mirrors quietly the light

Of the snow, and the new year.

Advent Calendar - Day 17

Today's offering is a poem by one of my very favorite poets, Pablo Neruda. The poem is called "If You Forget Me," and it's scorchingly beautiful.

Our giveaway is a paperback copy of Love Poems by Pablo Neruda Donald D. Walsh . I'll choose one random commenter from the section below.

If You Forget Me

Pablo Neruda

I want you to know

one thing. 

You know how this is: 

if I look 

at the crystal moon, at the red branch 

of the slow autumn at my window, 

if I touch 

near the fire 

the impalpable ash 

or the wrinkled body of the log, 

everything carries me to you, 

as if everything that exists, 

aromas, light, metals, 

were little boats 

that sail 

toward those isles of yours that wait for me. 

Well, now, 

if little by little you stop loving me 

I shall stop loving you little by little. 

If suddenly 

you forget me 

do not look for me, 

for I shall already have forgotten you. 

If you think it long and mad, 

the wind of banners 

that passes through my life, 

and you decide 

to leave me at the shore 

of the heart where I have roots, 

remember 

that on that day, 

at that hour, 

I shall lift my arms 

and my roots will set off 

to seek another land. 

But 

if each day, 

each hour, 

you feel that you are destined for me 

with implacable sweetness, 

if each day a flower 

climbs up to your lips to seek me, 

ah my love, ah my own, 

in me all that fire is repeated, 

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, 

my love feeds on your love, beloved, 

and as long as you live it will be in your arms 

without leaving mine. 

Vernal Equinox

The scent of hyacinths, like a pale mist, lies

   between me and my book;
And the South Wind, washing through the room,
Makes the candles quiver.
My nerves sting at a spatter of rain on the shutter,
And I am uneasy with the thrusting of green shoots        
Outside, in the night.

Why are you not here to overpower me with your

   tense and urgent love?

Amy Lowell, 1874 - 1925

Advent Calender - Day 22

Photo by Kovalevska licensed thru Shutterstock

"Mistletoe" by Walter de la Mare

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.
Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen - and kissed me there.

Advent Calender - Day 20

Today is something simple. A poem and a couple of pictures. The poem is "In Excelsis"  by Amy Lowell. We have been focused on Christmas romance over the past few days and somehow this spoke to me. The photos are by Kati Molin and Morgan Studio (licensed thru Shutterstock).

You -- you --
Your shadow is sunlight on a plate of silver;
Your footsteps, the seeding-place of lilies;
Your hands moving, a chime of bells across a windless air.
The movement of your hands is the long, golden running of light from a rising sun;
It is the hopping of birds upon a garden-path.
As the perfume of jonquils, you come forth in the morning.
Young horses are not more sudden than your thoughts,
Your words are bees about a pear-tree,
Your fancies are the gold-and-black striped wasps buzzing among red apples.
I drink your lips,
I eat the whiteness of your hands and feet.
My mouth is open,
As a new jar I am empty and open.
Like white water are you who fill the cup of my mouth,
Like a brook of water thronged with lilies.
You are frozen as the clouds,
You are far and sweet as the high clouds.
I dare to reach to you,
I dare to touch the rim of your brightness.
I leap beyond the winds,
I cry and shout,
For my throat is keen as is a sword
Sharpened on a hone of ivory.
My throat sings the joy of my eyes,
The rushing gladness of my love.
How has the rainbow fallen upon my heart?
How have I snared the seas to lie in my fingers
And caught the sky to be a cover for my head? How have you come to dwell with me,
Compassing me with the four circles of your mystic lightness,
So that I say "Glory! Glory!" and bow before you
As to a shrine?
Do I tease myself that morning is morning and a day after?
Do I think the air is a condescension,
The earth a politeness,
Heaven a boon deserving thanks?
So you -- air -- earth -- heaven --
I do not thank you,
I take you,
I live.
And those things which I say in consequence
Are rubies mortised in a gate of stone.