Millay

I love Edna St. Vincent Millay; she speaks to me, and I feel like we can relate. I particularly adore her sonnets -- the language is stunning. Sometimes, I just feel like I can't get enough of her. This is one of those times; maybe because of the place I'm in, maybe because I need her purity of thought, maybe I want to be fed by her language, by the words she chose, by the rhythm and music of her verse. Or maybe it's because she's familiar, comfortable, easy. Whatever the reason, I hope you enjoy.

Sonnet 115

Even in the moment of our earliest kiss,

When sighed the straitened bud into the flower, 

Sat the dry seed of most unwelcome this;

And that I knew, though not the day and hour.

Too season-wise am I, being country-bred,

To tilt at autumn or defy the frost:

Snuffing the chill even as my fathers did,

I say with them, "What's out tonight is lost."

I only hoped, with the mild hope of all

Who watch the leaf take shape upon the tree,

A fairer summer and a later fall

Than in these parts a man is apt to see,

And sunny clusters ripened for the wine:

I tell you this across the blackened vine.

Sonnet 116

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;

In my own way, and with my full consent.

Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely

Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.

Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping

I will confess; but that's permitted me;

Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping

Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.

If I had loved you less or played you slyly

I might have held you for a summer more,

But at the cost of words I value highly,

And no such summer as the one before.

Should I outlive this anguish --and men do--

I shall have only good to say of you.

Emily Dickinson

I wanted to share this poem, as it seemed appropriate given the weather we've been having around here lately... 

Wild Nights -- Wild Nights!

Were I with thee

Wild Nights should be 

Our luxury!

Futile -- the Winds --

To a Heart in port -- 

Done with the Compass -- 

Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden --

Ah, the Sea!

Might I but moor -- Tonight --

In Thee!

I found this poem in a collection, and I also really loved what the editor, Robert Aldin Rubin, had to say about this poem: "Within the safe Edenic harbor of passionate love, wind and thunder become oddly comforting."

"In The Delicate Arch"

I have been woefully negligent in checking the email address associated with this blog; I apologize. I happened upon this submission (from April!). Thank you, David!

In the Delicate Arch
from southward sun
a beam did cross
your face while in
architecture I could 
never engineer
and a fascination
with the insides
outsides, crosssides
of an inhospitable land
in your boyish way
you did fix a fear
mostly mine.
-David Yancey

"Separation"

I stumbled across this gem on a friend's blog, and I say stumbled because it brought me up short and left me breathless with the simple beauty of it:

Separation

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

--W.S. Merwin