What lips my lips have kissed....

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII)

Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892 - 1950

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning; but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply,

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:

I cannot say what loves have come and gone,

I only know that summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more.[1]

Garden at Evening-time 8.45 - 8.55 p.m. 25th June 2018.

I have Hay Fever,

Once the garden has been watered.

I sit, my breathing becoming

easier in the damp air. I feel the l

light breeze on my arms

I look around.

I see that in the still blue sky,

there are feathery clouds,

a shadowy almost full moon

waiting, waiting to come out.

Now that the sun is lowering,

the summer flowers in their tubs

are closing their petals, happy

the heat of the day is passed.

What do I hear? The Leeds to

London Train has just rattled

and banged its way passed the

back of our house, I can

I hear the traffic rumbling

passed on the nearby

By-Pass Road.

A more pleasing sound is

the baby Sparrow on the

roof calling for his mother

To come and feed him.

Bees living in a corner of

the Garage, from early light

they are busy going back

and forwards. I like the

sound of the

Busy, Buzzing, Bees.

My Garden. FLOWERS by marge.

My Garden. FLOWERS.

Weeks ago, my garden was filled

with the vibrant colour of flowers.

Reds, blues, white and yellows,

Poppies, Cornflowers, Daisies.

A riot of wildflowers

in a suburban garden.

Our house is on a windy corner.

The long-stemmed flowers buffeted

this way and that, they couldn’t take

it and laid their pretty heads down.

The following heat wave finishing

them off.

Now all I can do is to cut them

down and dig the roots out.

The garden looks so sad as I go

about, clearing bed after bed.

I take seed heads off to save -

My hope of next years splendour.

NOTE: This is one in a series of poems about my Garden.

Windy Tree by Aileen Fisher

Windy Tree - Aileen Fisher. (taken off Woodland Trust site.)

Think of the muscles

a tall tree grows

in its leg, in its foot,

in its wide-spread toes -

not to tip over

and fall on its nose

when a wild wind hustles

and tussels and blows.

Poems on the theme of Money by marge

Poems on the theme of Money.

You know it’s funny

About this thing

Called money

You’ve either

      Got it

     Or - not!

---------------------------

Money, Money, Money!

Sang Fagin as he hoarded it

Spend, spend, spend,

Said the lady from Castleford

As she went from rags to

Riches and back to rags.

Money, Money, Money!

Is no good in the Bank

So what is the point of

Keeping it, but you need

Moderation in all things,

Spend some, share some,

Money, money, money!

Keep some for that

“Rainy Day” or old age!

--------------------------

Money haiku

Money can make us

humans, happy or make them

Sad, too, too sad

Silent Noon. By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,— 

  The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:

  Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms

'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.

All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,

  Are golden kingcup fields with silver edge

  Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.

'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly

Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:—

  So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above.

Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,

This close-companioned inarticulate hour

  When twofold silence was the song of love.

Rusty our Lhasa Apso Dog by marge.

Rusty, a Lhasa Apso.

He was the best dog I ever had -

When he died my family was so sad.

Because he had to be put to sleep,

My children did not speak to me for weeks.

It was on Blue Peter that I first saw

These little “Lion dogs” from afar.

It was years and years ago, I wished

I could afford one, then I saw one advertised.

I phoned the lady, she said: “come and see”.

We were so excited, my children and me.

That we would buy was not in doubt,

His heritage. she told us about.

That tiny, furry scrap we held in our hands

from the cold and mountainous Nepal’s far off lands.

Thunder Thoughts. (Personification of Thunder.)

Thunder Thoughts.

“I’ll show these people

who are grumbling about the heat”.

“I will wake up people

snoozing on sun loungers”.

“It will be fun to give

the girls something to

    SCREAM about.”

“The wives will have

to rush outside to bring

the  washing in”

“The dogs will have

to hang their tongues out to

puff and pant

and

tremble with FEAR…..”

“I will bang so loud

that even the brave boys and men

will hide their quaking”.

I, Thunder am not all bad

I bring the rain,

I make the air sweet again.

BUT THEN,  I do have a wicked streak!

I Go Among Trees by Wendell Berry.

I go among trees and sit still.

All my stirring becomes quiet

around me like circles on water.

My tasks lie in their places

where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes

and lives a while in my sight.

What it fears in me leaves me,

and the fear of me leaves it.

It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.

I live for a while in its sight.

What I fear in it leaves it,

and the fear of it leaves me.

It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,

mute in my consternations,

I hear my song at last,

and I sing it. As we sing,

the day turns, the trees move.

Pretty Nodding Poppies by marge

Pretty Nodding Poppies in my Garden.

Today, walking around my garden,

I am amazed at the number

of Pretty Nodding Poppies some

Wild ones, small and dainty.

Some are cultivated and tall.

It does not matter, both

have the bright, blood red

colour. They both have

the same black middles.

They remind us of blood.

shed by soldiers.

They remind us of the

Opium Poppy that has

caused addiction and

Killed so many.

Why should such a

beautiful, bright flower

symbolise horror?

When it is a joy to see

Pretty Nodding Poppies

dancing in the breeze.

Their happy dance

can lift spirits,

make you smile

at both their

brightness and

their fragility.

Dance, Pretty Nodding Poppy,

dance!!

Charles Waterton lived at Walton Hall near Wakefield, it is now an Hotel.

Author, William Makepeace Thackeray was a friend

of Charles Waterton and when the Naturalist and

Taxidermist died, Thackeray had this to say of those

who labeled his friend an 'eccentric.'

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote,

'It was eccentric to dine on a crust, to live as chastely

as a hermit, and give his all to the poor. It was

eccentric to come into a large estate as a young 

man and to have lived to extreme old age without

having wasted an hour or a shilling. It was

eccentric to give bountifully and never allow

his name to appear on a subscription list.

It was eccentric to be saturated with a love

of nature. It might be eccentric never to give

dinner parties, preferring to keep an always

open house for his friends, but it was a very

agreeable kind of eccentricity, and the world

would be a much better place if such

eccentricity were more common.'