
the nook at jensan
A Poem for Sunday: "Testament" by Carolyn M. Rodgers
Image credit: imagex / 123RF Stock Photo
child,
in the august of your life
you come barefoot to me
the blisters of events
having worn through to the
soles of your shoes.
it is not the time
this is not the time
there is no such time
to tell you
that some pains ease away
on the ebb & toll of
themselves.
there is no such dream that
can not fail, nor is hope our
only conquest.
we can stand boldly in burdening places (like earth here)
in our blunderings, our bloomings
our palms, flattened upward or pressed,
an unyielding down.
A Poem for Sunday: This is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams
Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
A Poem for Sunday: I Continue to Dream by Langston Hughes
I had another poem scheduled to share with you today but my heart broke last night with the news of the Trayvon verdict and that poem no longer worked for how I was feeling so I thought I would share this Langston Hughes one with you instead.
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123RF Stock Photos / Dmytro Tolokonov[/caption]

I Continue to Dream
I take my dreams and make of them a bronze vase
and a round fountain with a beautiful statue in its center. And a song with a broken heart and I ask you: Do you understand my dreams? Sometimes you say you do, And sometimes you say you don’t. Either way it doesn’t matter. I continue to dream.
A Poem for Sunday: "If" by Rudyard Kipling
"If" is probably the quintessential British poem by the most quintessential of English poets and so on the day Andy Murray wins the Wimbledon Championship, I thought it would be nice to share.
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-toss,
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!

A Memorial Poem for Sunday: "Not to Keep" by Robert Frost

A Poem for Sunday: A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

A Poem for Mother's Day: "Child and Mother" by Eugene Field
O mother-my-love, if you'll give me your hand,
And go where I ask you to wander,
I will lead you away to a beautiful land,—
The Dreamland that's waiting out yonder.
We'll walk in a sweet posie-garden out there,
Where moonlight and starlight are streaming,
And the flowers and the birds are filling the air
With the fragrance and music of dreaming.
There'll be no little tired-out boy to undress,
No questions or cares to perplex you,
There'll be no little bruises or bumps to caress,
Nor patching of stockings to vex you;
For I'll rock you away on a silver-dew stream
And sing you asleep when you're weary,
And no one shall know of our beautiful dream
But you and your own little dearie.
And when I am tired I'll nestle my head
In the bosom that's soothed me so often,
And the wide-awake stars shall sing, in my stead,
A song which our dreaming shall soften.
So, Mother-my-Love, let me take your dear hand,
And away through the starlight we'll wander,—
Away through the mist to the beautiful land,—
The Dreamland that's waiting out yonder.
I will lead you away to a beautiful land,—
The Dreamland that's waiting out yonder.
We'll walk in a sweet posie-garden out there,
Where moonlight and starlight are streaming,
And the flowers and the birds are filling the air
With the fragrance and music of dreaming.
There'll be no little tired-out boy to undress,
No questions or cares to perplex you,
There'll be no little bruises or bumps to caress,
Nor patching of stockings to vex you;
For I'll rock you away on a silver-dew stream
And sing you asleep when you're weary,
And no one shall know of our beautiful dream
But you and your own little dearie.
And when I am tired I'll nestle my head
In the bosom that's soothed me so often,
And the wide-awake stars shall sing, in my stead,
A song which our dreaming shall soften.
So, Mother-my-Love, let me take your dear hand,
And away through the starlight we'll wander,—
Away through the mist to the beautiful land,—
The Dreamland that's waiting out yonder.
A Poem for Sunday: I Remember, I Remember by Thomas Hood
Mom says that now she is up there in years (83-years young), she is remembering things from her childhood that she had long forgotten. It is so enjoyable and uplifting to hear stories of her youth during a totally different era…especially since so many in her age range have the opposite problem and can’t remember much. We are truly blessed! This morning she started reciting “I Remember, I Remember,” which she learned in school when she was a girl at school and I thought I would share it with you today.
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A kitchen in an abandoned home in Bodie, California - Smithsonian Magazine[/caption]
I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon
Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.
I remember, I remember
The roses red and white,
The violets and the lily cups—
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,—
The tree is living yet!
I remember, I remember
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then
That is so heavy now,
The summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow.
I remember, I remember
The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now ‘tis little joy
To know I’m farther off from Heaven
Than when I was a boy.

A Poem for Sunday: The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
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The Greenwood Plantation's Oak Alley on a Misty Morning - Smithsonian Magazine[/caption]
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

A Poem for Sunday: "Death Be Not Proud" by John Donne
A very close family friend passed overnight. That along with what happened in Boston and Texas this week has had me thinking about death this morning. It’s very painful for the family and friends left behind—especially when it comes unexpectedly but as Donne says in his famous poem, I don’t think that those moving on should fear it.
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"Waking up with the sun" Smithsonian Magazine Photo of the Day: July 16, 2012
Reni Bitting (Medina, Ohio); Photographed August 2011, Okaloosa Island, Destin, FL[/caption] DEATH BE NOT PROUD Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more, death, thou shalt die.

Reni Bitting (Medina, Ohio); Photographed August 2011, Okaloosa Island, Destin, FL[/caption] DEATH BE NOT PROUD Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more, death, thou shalt die.