It’s a frigid -26 Celsius with ice crystals in the air so I thought I would post a winter poem 🙂
Edward Gates
From: Heart’s Cupboard
the wind beats snow
against my house
threads hang from the coat of a man
filling the cracks in his home
last night a man with black hair
drank beer by the well house
he laughed through a crack in the door
I put more wood on the stove
I am warm leaning back
on the legs of his old chair
The bird you captured is dead.
I told you it would die
but you would not learn
from my telling. You wanted
to cage a bird in your hands
and learn to fly.
Listen again.
You must not handle birds.
They cannot fly through your fingers.
You are not a nest
and a feather is
not made of blood and bone.
Only words
can fly for you like birds
on the wall of the sun.
A bird is a poem
that talks of the end of cages.
I Wonder How Many People in This City from “The Spice-Box of Earth” by Leonard Cohen
I wonder how many people in this city
Live in furnished rooms.
Late at night when i look out at the buildings
I swear I see a face in every window
Looking back at me
and when I turn away
I wonder how many go back to their desks
and write this down.
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
This traditional New Year’s anthem is based on an 18th century Scottish poem by Robert Burns.
‘Auld Lang Syne’
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?
And days of auld lang syne, my dear,
And days of auld lang syne.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?
We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pu’d the gowans fine.
We’ve wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin’ auld lang syne.
Sin’ auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin’ auld lang syne,
We’ve wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin’ auld ang syne.
We twa hae sported i’ the burn,
From morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin’ auld lang syne.
Sin’ auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin’ auld lang syne.
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin’ auld lang syne.
And ther’s a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie’s a hand o’ thine;
We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness
ScribbleDartsfromtheHeart 